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WINTERSLOW 



ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS 



WRITTEN THERE. 



by 



WILLIAM HAZLITT, 



<£oliert*& fcp f)ts Son. 




LONDON: 

DAVID BOGUE, FLEET STREET. 

MDCCCL. 



\ 



o v\ 



LOXDCX 



PRINTED BY RETNELL AND WEIGHT, 
LITTLE PULTENET STREET. 



/£-3wfy 



Is 



2$2 Permission, 

THIS VOLUME OF ESSAYS IS INSCRIBED 

IN ITS AUTHOR'S NAME 

TO ONE WHOM HE WOULD HAVE DELIGHTED TO HONOUR J 

A DIPLOMATIST FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND J 

A STATESMAN FOR THE SAKE OF THE STATE J 

A PATRIOT WITHOUT AN EYE TO HIMSELF ; 

TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE EIGHT HON. 

THE EARL OF CLARENDON, E.G., 

LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND. 



CONTENTS. 



MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS . 

OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN 

ON PARTY SPIRIT 

ON THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YODTH 

ON PUBLIC OPINION 

ON PERSONAL IDENTITY . 

MIND AND MOTIVE . 

ON MEANS AND ENDS 

MATTER AND MANNER 

ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION 

PROJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF CIVIL AND CRI 

MINAL LEGISLATION 
ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE 
ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX . 
ON THE CHARACTER OF PITT 
ON THE CHARACTER OF LORD CHATHAM 
BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY 
A FAREWELL TO ESSAY-WRITING 



I 

35 

59 

66 

78 

98 

120 

142 

158 

168 

191 
229 
255 

273 
282 
290 
303 



PREFACE. 



Winterslow is a village of Wiltshire, between Salis- 
bury and Andover, where my father, during a consi- 
derable portion of his life, spent several months of each 
year, latterly, at an ancient inn on the great western 
road, called Winterslow Hut. One of his chief attrac- 
tions hither were the noble woods of Tytherleigh or 
Tudorleigh, round Norman Court, the seat of Mr 
Baring Wall, M.P., whose proffered kindness to my 
father, on a critical occasion, was thoroughly appreci- 
ated by the very sensitiveness which declined its 
acceptance, and will always be gratefully remem- 
bered by myself. Another feature was Clarendon 
Wood — whence the noble family of Clarendon derived 
their title — famous besides for the Constitutions signed 
in the palace which once rose proudly amongst its 
stately trees, but of which scarce a vestige remains. 
In another direction, within easy distance, gloams 
Stonehenge, visited by my father, less perhaps for its 
historical associations than for its appeal to the ima- 
gination, the upright stones seeming in the dim twi- 
light, or in the drizzling mist, almost continuous in 
the locality, so many spectre-Druids, moaning over 
the past, and over their brethren prostrate about 



Tl PREFACE. 

them. At no great distance, in another direction, are 
the fine pictures of Lord Radnor, and somewhat fur- 
ther, those of Wilton House. But the chief happiness 
was the thorough quiet of the place, the sole interrup- 
tion of which was the passage, to and fro, of the Lon- 
don mails. The Hut stands in a valley, equidistant 
about a mile from two tolerably high hills, at the sum- 
mit of which, on their approach either way, the guards 
used to blow forth their admonition to the hostler. 
The sound, coming through the clear, pure air, was 
another agreeable feature in the day, reminiscentiary 
of the great city that my father so loved and so 
loathed. In olden times, when we lived in the vil- 
lage itself — a mile up the hill opposite — behind the 
Hut, Salisbury Plain stretches away mile after mile 
of open space — the reminiscence of the metropolis 
would be, from time to time, furnished in the plea- 
santest of ways by the presence of some London 
friends ; among these, dearly loved and honoured there 
as everywhere else, Charles and Mary Lamb paid us 
frequent visits, rambling about all the time, thorough 
Londoners in a thoroughly country place, delighted 
and wondering and wondered at. For such reasons, 
and for the other reason, which I mention inciden- 
tally, that Winterslow is my own native place, I have 
given its name to this collection of "Essays and Cha- 
racters written there;" as, indeed, practically were 
very many of his works, for it was there that most of 
his thinking was done. 

WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
Chelsea, Jan. 1850. 



ESSAY I. 

MY FIKST ACQUAINTANCE WITH 
POETS. 



My father was a Dissenting Minister, at Wem, 
in Shropshire ; and in the year 1798 (the figures 
that compose the date are to me like the " dreaded 
name of Demogorgon") Mr Coleridge came to 
Shrewsbury, to succeed Mr Eowe in the spiritual 
charge of a Unitarian Congregation there. He 
did not come till late on the Saturday afternoon 
before he was to preach ; and Mr Eowe, who him- 
self went down to the coach in a state of anxiety 
and expectation to look for the arrival of his suc- 
cessor, could find no one at all answering the de- 
scription but a round-faced man, in a short black 
coat (like a shooting jacket) which hardly seemed 
to have been made for him, but who seemed to be 
talking at a great rate to his fellow-passengers. 
Mr Eowe had scarce returned to give an account 
of his disappointment when the round-faced man 

B 



2 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE 

in black entered, and dissipated all doubts on the 
subject by beginning to talk. He did not cease 
while he stayed ; nor has he since, that I know 
of. He held the good town of Shrewsbury in de- 
lightful suspense for three weeks that he remained 
there, "fluttering the proud Salopians, like an 
eagle in a dove-cote ;" and the Welsh mountains 
that skirt the horizon with their tempestuous con- 
fusion, agree to have heard no such mystic sounds 
since the days of 

" High-born Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay." 

As we passed along between Wem and Shrews- 
bury, and I eyed their blue tops seen through the 
wintry branches, or the red rustling leaves of the 
sturdy oak-trees by the road- side, a sound was 
in my ears as of a Syren's song ; I was stunned, 
startled with it, as from deep sleep ; but I had no 
notion then that I should ever be able to express 
my admiration to others in motley imagery or 
quaint allusion, till the light of his genius shone 
into my soul, like the sun's rays glittering in the 
puddles of the road. I was at that time dumb, 
inarticulate, helpless, like a worm by the way-side, 
crushed, bleeding, lifeless ; but now, bursting from 
the deadly bands that " bound them, 

"With Styx nine times round them," 

my ideas float on winged words, and as they ex- 



WITH POETS. 6 

panel their plumes, catch the golden light of other 
years. My soul has indeed remained in its original 
bondage, dark, obscure, with longings infinite and 
unsatisfied ; my heart, shut up in the prison-house 
of this rude clay, has never found, nor will it ever 
find, a heart to speak to ; but that my understanding 
also did not remain dumb and brutish, or at length 
found a language to express itself, I owe to Cole - 
ridge. But this is not to my purpose. 

My father lived ten miles from Shrewsbury, 
and was hi the habit of exchanging visits with Mr 
Eowe, and with Mr Jenkins of Whitchurch (nine 
miles farther on), according to the custom of Dis- 
senting Ministers in each other's neighbourhood. 
A line of communication is thus established, by 
which the flame of civil and religious liberty is. 
kept alive, and nourishes its smouldering fire un- 
quenchable, like the fires in the Agamemnon of 
iEschylus, placed at different stations, that waited 
for ten long years to announce with their blazing 
pyramids the destruction of Troy. Coleridge had 
agreed to come over and see my father, according 
to the courtesy of the country, as Mr Eowe's pro- 
bable successor ; but, in the mean time, I had 
gone to hear liim preach the Sunday after his ar- 
rival. A poet and a philosopher getting up into a 
Unitarian pulpit to preach the gospel, was a 
romance in these degenerate days, a sort of revival 



4 MY FIEST ACQUAINTANCE 

of the primitive spirit of Christianity, which was 
not to be resisted. 

It was in January 1798, that I rose one morn- 
ing before daylight, to walk ten miles in the mud, 
to hear this celebrated person preach. Never, the 
longest day I have to live, shall I have such 
another walk as this cold, raw, comfortless one, in 
the winter of the year 1798. — II y a des impres- 
sions que ni le terns ni les circonstances peuvent 
effacer. Dusse-je vivre des siecles entiers, le doxix 
terns de ma jeunesse ne peut renaitre pour moi, ni 
$ effacer jamais dans ma memoire. When I got 
there, the organ was playing the 100th Psalm, 
and when it was done, Mr Coleridge rose and gave 
out his text, " And he went up into the mountain 
to pray, himself, alone." As he gave out this 
text, his voice " rose like a steam of rich distilled 
perfumes," and when he came to the two last words, 
which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it 
seemed to me, who was then young, as if the 
sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human 
heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in 
solemn silence through the universe. The idea of 
St John came into my mind, " of one crying in 
the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, and 
whose food was locusts and wild honey." The 
preacher then launched into his subject, like an 
eagle dallying with the wind. The sermon was upon 



WITH POETS. O 

peace and war ; upon church and state — not their 
alliance but their separation — on the spirit of the 
world and the spirit of Christianity, not as the 
same, but as opposed to one another. He talked 
of those who had " inscribed the cross of Christ on 
banners dripping with human gore." He made a 
poetical and pastoral excursion, — and to show the 
fatal effects of war, drew a striking contrast be- 
tween the simple shepherd boy, driving his team 
afield, or sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his 
flock, " as though he should never be old," and the 
same poor country-lad, crimped, kidnapped, brought 
into town, made drunk at an alehouse, turned into 
a wretched drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on 
end with powder and pomatum, a long cue at his 
back, and tricked out in the loathsome finery of 
the profession of blood. 

"Such, were the notes our once-loved poet sung." 

And for myself, I could not have been more de- 
lighted if I had heard the music of the spheres. 
Poetry and Philosophy had met together, Truth 
and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with 
the sanction of Religion. This was even beyond 
my hopes. I returned home well satisfied. The 
sun that was still labouring pale and wan through 
the sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an em- 1 
blem of the good cause ; and the cold dank drops 



6 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE 

of dew, that hung half melted on the beard of the 
thistle, had something genial and refreshing in 
them ; for there was a spirit of hope and youth in 
all nature, that turned everything into good. The 
face of nature had not then the brand of Jus 
Divinum on it : 

" Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe." 

On the Tuesday following, the half-inspired 
speaker came. I was called down into the room 
where he was. and went half-hoping, half-afraid. 
He received me very graciously, and I listened 
for a long time without uttering a word. I did 
not suffer in his opinion by my silence. "For 
those two hours," he afterwards was pleased to say, 
"he was conversing with William Hazlitt's fore- 
head ! " His appearance was different from what 
I had anticipated from seeing him before. At a 
distance, and in the dim light of the chapel, there 
was to me a strange wildness in his aspect, a 
dusky obscurity, and I thought him pitted with 
the small-pox. His complexion was at that time 
clear, and even bright — 

" As are the children of yon azure sheen." 

His forehead was broad and high, light as if built 
of ivory, with large projecting eyebrows, and his 
eyes rolling beneath them, like a sea with darkened 



WITH POETS. 7 

lustre. "A certain tender bloom his face o'er- 
spread," a purple tinge as we see it in the pale 
thoughtful complexions of the Spanish portrait- 
painters, Murillo and Velasquez. His mouth was 
gross, voluptuous, open, eloquent ; his chin good- 
humoured and round ; but his nose, the rudder of 
the face, the index of the will, was small, feeble, 
nothing — like what he has done. It might seem 
that the genius of his face as from a height sur- 
veyed and projected him (with sufficient capacity 
and huge aspiration) into the world unknown of 
thought and imagination, with nothing to support 
or guide his veering purpose, as if Columbus had 
launched his adventurous course for the New 
World in a scallop, without oars or compass. So 
at least I comment on it after the event. Cole- 
ridge, in his person, was rather above the common 
size, inchning to the corpulent, or like Lord 
Hamlet, " somewhat fat and pursy." His hair 
(now, alas ! grey) was then black and glossy as the 
raven's, and fell in smooth masses over his fore- 
head. This long pendulous hair is peculiar to 
enthusiasts, to those whose minds tend heaven- 
ward ; and is traditionally inseparable (though of a 
different colour) from the pictures of Christ, It 
ought to belong, as a character, to all who preach 
Christ crucified, and Coleridge was at that time 
one of those ! 



8 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE 

It was curious to observe the contrast between 
Mm and my father, who was a veteran in the 
cause, and then declining into the vale of years. 
He had been a poor Irish lad, carefully brought 
up by his parents, and sent to the University of 
Glasgow (where he studied under Adam Smith) 
to prepare him for his future destination. It was 
his mother's proudest wish to see her son a Dis- 
senting Minister. So, if we look back to past 
generations (as far as eye can reach), we see the 
same hopes, fears, wishes, followed by the same 
disappointments, throbbing in the human heart ; 
and so we may see them (if we look forward) 
rising up for ever, and disappearing, like vapourish 
bubbles, in the human breast ! After being tossed 
about from congregation to congregation in the 
heats of the Unitarian controversy, and squabbles 
about the American war, he had been relegated 
to an obscure village, where he was to spend the 
last thirty years of his life, far from the only con- 
verse that he loved, the talk about disputed texts 
of Scripture, and the cause of civil and religious 
liberty. Here he passed his days, repining, but 
resigned, in the study of the Bible, and the perusal 
of the Commentators, — huge folios, not easily got 
through, one of winch woidd outlast a whiter ! Why 
did he pore on these from mom to night (with the 
exception of a walk in the fields or a turn in the 



WITH POETS. 9 

[ garden to gather broccoli-plants or kidney beans of 
his own rearing, with no small degree of pride and 
pleasure)? — Here were "no figures nor no fanta- 
sies,"— neither poetry nor philosophy — nothing to 
dazzle, nothing to excite modern curiosity ; but to 
his lack-lustre eyes there appeared, within the 
pages of the ponderous, unwieldy, neglected tomes, 
the sacred name of JEHOVAH in Hebrew capi- 
tals : pressed down by the weight of the style, 
worn to the last fading thinness of the under- 
standing, there were glimpses, ghmmering notions 
of the patriarchal wanderings, with palm trees 
hovering in the horizon, and processions of camels 
at the distance of three thousand years ; there was 
Moses with the Burning Bush, the number of the 
Twelve Tribes, types, shadows, glosses on the law 
and the prophets ; there were discussions (dull 
enough) on the age of Methuselah, a mighty 
speculation ! there were outlines, rude guesses at 
the shape of Noah's Ark and of the riches of Solo- - 
mon's Temple ; questions as to the date of the 
creation, predictions of the end of all things ; the 
great lapses of time, the strange mutations of the 
globe were unfolded with the voluminous leaf, as 
it turned over ; and though the soul might slum- 
ber with an hieroglyphic veil of inscrutable myste- 
ries drawn over it, yet it was in a slumber ill- 
exchanged for all the_ sharpened realities of sense, 



10 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE 

wit, fancy, or reason. My father's life was compa- 
ratively a dream ; but it was a dream of infinity 
and eternity, of death, the resurrection, and a 
judgment to come ! 

No two individuals were ever more unlike than 
were the host and his guest. A poet was to my 1 
father a soil of nondescript ; yet whatever added 7 
grace to the Unitarian cause was to him welcome.! 
He could hardly have been more surprised or 
pleased, if our visitor had worn wings. Indeed, 
his thoughts had wings ; and as the silken sounds 
rustled round our little wainscoted parlour, my 
father threw back his spectacles over his forehead, 
his white hairs mixing with its sanguine hue ; and 
a smile of delight beamed across his rugged cordial 
face, to think that Truth had found a new ally in 
Fancy ! * Besides, Coleridge seemed to take con- 
siderable notice of me, and that of itself was 
enough. He talked very familiarly, but agreeably, 
•and glanced over a variety of subjects. At dinner- 
time he grew more animated, and dilated in a 
very edifying manner on Mary Wolstonecraf t 

* My father was one of those who mistook his talent 
after all. He used to he very much dissatisfied that I 
preferred his Letters to his Sermons. The last were forced 
and dry ; the first came naturally from him. For ease, 
half-plays on words, and a supine, monkish, indolent plea- 
santry, I have never seen them equalled. 



WITH POETS. 11 

and Mackintosh. The last, he said, he con- 
sidered (on my father's speaking of his ' Vin- 
dicise Gallicae ' as a capital performance) as a 
clever scholastic man — a master of the topics, — or 
as the ready warehouseman of letters, who knew 
exactly where to lay Iris hand on what he wanted, 
though the goods were not his own. He thought 
him no match for Burke, either in style or matter. 
Burke was a metaphysician, Mackintosh a mere f 
logician. Burke was an orator (almost a poet) who 
reasoned in figures, because he had an eye for 
nature : Mackintosh, on the other hand, was . .a 
rhetorician, who had only an eye to common-places. 
On this I ventured to say that I had always enter- 
tained a great opinion of Burke, and that (as far 
as I could find) the speaking of him with contempt 
might be made the test of a vulgar democratical 
mind. This was the first observation I ever made 
to Coleridge, and he said it was a very just and 
striking one. I remember the leg of Welsh mut- 
ton and the turnips on the table that day had the 
finest flavour imaginable. Coleridge added that 
Mackintosh and Tom Wedgwood (of w^hom, how- 
ever, he spoke highly) had expressed a very indif- 
ferent opinion of his friend Mr Wordsworth, on t - 
which he remarked to them — "He strides on so 
far before you, that he dwindles in the distance ! " 
-Godwin had once boasted to him of having carried 



12 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE 

on an argument with Mackintosh for three hours 
with dubious success ; Coleridge told him — " If 
there had been a man of genius in the room he 
would have settled the question in five minutes." 
He asked me if I had ever seen Mary Wolstone- 
craft, and I said, I had once for a few moments, 
and that she seemed to me to turn off Godwin's 
objections to something she advanced with quite a 
playful, easy air. He replied, that "this was 
only one instance of the ascendency which people 
of imagination exercised over those of mere intel- 
lect." He did not rate Godwin very high* (this 
was caprice or prejudice, real or affected), but he 
had a great idea of Mrs WolstonecrafVs powers of 
conversation ; none at all of her talent for book- 
making. We talked a little about Holcroft. He 
had been asked if he was not much struck with him, 
and he said, he thought himself in more danger 
of being struck by him. I complained that he 
would not let me get on at all, for he required a 
definition of every the commonest word, exclaiming, 
"What do you mean by a sensation, Sir? What 



* He complained in particular of the presumption of 
his attempting to establish the future immortality of man, 
u without " (as he said) " knowing what Death was or what 
Life was" — and the tone in which he pronounced these two 
words seemed to convey a complete image of both. 



WITH POETS. 13 

do you mean by an idea ? " This, Coleridge said, 
was barricadoing the road to truth ; — it was setting 
up a turnpike-gate at every step we took. I forget 
a great number of things, many more than I 
remember ; but the day passed off pleasantly, and 
the next morning Mr Coleridge was to return to 
Shrewsbury. When I came down to breakfast, I 
found that he had just received a letter from his 
friend, T. Wedgwood, making him an offer of 150£, 
a year if he chose to waive his present pursuit, and 
devote himself entirely to the study of poetry and 
philosophy. Coleridge seemed to make up his 
mind to close with this proposal in the act of tying 
on one of his shoes. It threw an additional damp 
on his departure. It took the wayward enthusiast 
quite from us to cast him into Deva's winding 
vales, or by the shores of old romance. Instead of 
living at ten miles' distance, of being the pastor of 
a Dissenting congregation at Shrewsbury, he was 
henceforth to inhabit the Hill of Parnassus, to be 
a Shepherd on the Delectable Mountains. Alas ! 
I knew not the way thither, and felt veiy little 
gratitude for Mr Wedgwood's bounty. I was 
presently relieved from this dilemma ; for Mr 
Coleridge, asking for a pen and ink, and going to 
a table to write something on a bit of card, 
advanced towards me with undulating step, and 
giving me the precious document, said that that 



14 MY FIBST ACQUAINTANCE 

was his address, Mr Coleridge, Nether- Stoivey, 
Somersetshire ; and that he should be glad to see 
me there in a few weeks' time, and, if I chose, 
would come half-way to meet me. I was not less 
surprised than the shepherd-boy (this simile is to 
be found in Cassandra) when he sees a thunder- 
bolt fall close at his feet, I stammered out my 
acknowledgments and acceptance of this offer 
(I thought Mr Wedgwoods annuity a trifle to it) 
as well as I could ; and this mighty business being 
settled, the poet-preacher took leave, and I accom- 
panied him six miles on the road. It was a fine 
morning in the middle of winter, and he talked 
the whole way. The scholar in Chaucer is de- 
cribed as going 

" Sounding on his way." 



So Coleridge went on his. In digressing, in 
dilating, in passing from subject to subject, he 
appeared to me to float hi air, to slide on ice. 
He told me in confidence (going along) that he 
should have preached two sermons before he 
accepted the situation at Shrewsbury, one on 
Infant Baptism, the other on the Lords Supper, 
showing that he could not administer either, which 
would have effectually disqualified him for the 
object in view. I observed that he continually 
crossed me on the way by shifting from one side 



WITH POETS. 15 

of the footpath to the other. This struck me as 
an odd movement ; but I did not at that time 
connect it with any instability of purpose or invo- 
luntary change of principle, as I have done since. 
He seemed unable to keep on in a straight line. 
He spoke slightingly of Hume (whose ' Essay on 
Miracles' he said was stolen from an objection 
started in one of South 's sermons — Credat Judceus 
Apella /) I was not very much pleased at this \i 
account of Hume, for I had just been reading, with 
infinite relish, that compietest of all metaphysical 
cJioke-pears, his ' Treatise on Human Nature,' to 
which the ' Essays,' in point of scholastic subtilty 
and close reasoning, are mere elegant trifling, 
light summer reading. Coleridge even denied 
the excellence of Hume's general style, which I\ 
think betrayed a want of taste or candour. He j 
however made me amends by the manner in which j 
he spoke of Berkeley. He dwelt particularly on j 
his ■ Essay on Vision' as a masterpiece of analy 
tical reasoning. So it undoubtedly is. He was 

j exceedingly angry with Dr Johnson for striking 
the stone with his foot, in allusion to this author's 

• Theory of Matter and Spirit, and saying, "Thus 
I confute him, Sir." Coleridge drew a parallel (I 
don't know how he brought about the connexion) 
between Bishop Berkeley and Tom Paine. He 
said the one was an instance of a subtle, the other 



16 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE 

of an acute mind, than which no two things could 
be more distinct. The one w r as a shop-boy's 
quality, the other the characteristic of a philoso- 
pher. He considered Bishop Butler as a true 
philosopher, a profound and conscientious thinker, 
a genuine reader of nature and of his own mind , 
He did not speak of his 'Analogy,' but of his 
' Sermons at the Bolls' Chapel,' of which I had 
never heard. Coleridge somehow always contrived 
to prefer the unknown to the "known. In this 
instance he was right. The ' Analogy' is a tissue 
of sophistry, of wire-drawn, theological special- 
pleading ; the * Sermons' (with the Preface to 
them) are in a fine vein of deep, matured reflec- 
tion, a candid appeal to our observation of human 
nature, without pedantry and without bias. I told 
Coleridge I had written a few remarks, and was 
sometimes foolish enough to believe that I had 
made a discovery on the same subject (the ' Natural 
Disinterestedness of the Human Mind')— and I 
tried to explain my view of it to Coleridge, who 
listened with great willingness, but I did not suc- 
ceed in making myself understood. I sat down 
to the task shortly afterwards for the twentieth 
time, got new pens and paper, determined to make 
clear work of it, wrote a few meagre sentences in 
the skeleton-style of a mathematical demonstration, 
stopped half-way down the second page ; and, after 



WITH POETS. 17 

trying in vain to pump up any words, images, 
notions, apprehensions, facts, or observations, from 
that gulph of abstraction in which I had plunged 
myself for four or five years preceding, gave up 
the attempt as labour in vain, and shed tears 
of helpless despondency on the blank unfinished 
paper. I can write fast enough now. Am 1 1 
better than I was then ? Oh no ! One truth j 
discovered, one pang of regret at not being able j 
to express it, is better than all the fluency and; 
flippancy in the world. Would that I could go^ 
back to what I then was ! Why can we not \ 
revive past times as we can revisit old places ? If I 
I had the quaint Muse of Sir Philip Sidney to 
assist me, I would write a Sonnet to the Road be- 
tween Wem and Shrewsbury, and immortalise every 
step of it by some fond enigmatical conceit. I 
would swear that the very milestones had ears, 
and that Harmer-hill stooped with all its pines, to 
listen to a poet, as he passed ! I remember but 
one other topic of discourse in this walk. He 
mentioned Paley, praised the naturalness and 
clearness of his style, but condemned his senti- 
ments, thought him a mere time-serving casuist, 
and said that " the fact of his work on Moral and 
Political Philosophy being made a text-book in our 
Universities was a disgrace to the national charac- 



18 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE 

ter." We parted at the six-mile stone; and I 
returned homeward, pensive but much pleased. I 
had met with unexpected notice from a person, 
whom I believed to have been prejudiced against 
me. " Kind and affable to me had been Ins con- 
descension, and should be honoured ever with 
suitable regard." He was the first poet I had 
known, and he certainly answered to that inspired 
name. I had heard a great deal of his powers of 
conversation, and was not disappointed. In fact. 
I never met with any thing at all like them, either 
before or since. I could easily credit the accounts 
which were circulated of his holding forth to a 
large party of ladies and gentlemen, an evening or 
two before, on the Berkeleian Theory, when he 
made the whole material universe look like a 
transparency of fine words ; and another story 
(which I believe he has somewhere told himself) 
of his being asked to a party at Birmingham, of 
his smoking tobacco and going to sleep after din- 
ner on a sofa, where the company found Inm to 
their no small surprise, which was increased to 
wonder when he started up of a sudden, and rub- 
bing his eyes, looked about him, and launched 
into a Jhree-hours' description of the third heaven, 
of which he had had a dream, very different from 
Mr Southev's 'Vision of Judgment,' and also 



WITH POETS, 19 

from that other ' Vision of Judgment,' which Mr 
Murray, the Secretary of the Bridge-street Junta, 
took into his especial keeping ! 

On my way back, I had a sound in my ears — it 
was the voice of Fancy ; I had a light before me — 
it was the face of Poetry. The one still lingers 
there, the other has not quitted my side ! Cole- 
ridge in truth met me half-way on the ground of 
philosophy, or I should not have been won over to 
his imaginative creed. I had an uneasy, pleasurable 
sensation all the time, till I was to visit him. 
During those months the chill breath of winter 
gave me a welcoming ; the vernal air was balm 
and inspiration to me. The golden sun-sets, the 
silver star of evening, lighted me on my way to 
new hopes and prospects. I teas to visit Coleridge 
in the Spring. This circumstance was never 
absent from my thoughts, and mingled with all my 
feelings. I wrote to him at the time proposed, and 
received an answer postponing my intended visit 
for a week or two, but very cordially urging me to 
complete my promise then. This delay did not 
damp, but rather increased my ardour. In the 
mean time, I went to Llangollen Vale, by way of 
initiating myself in the mysteries of natural scenery ; 
and I must say I was enchanted with it. I had 
been reading Coleridge's description of England, 
in his fine 'Ode on the Departing Year,' and I 



20 MY FIEST ACQUAINTANCE 

applied it, con amove, to the objects before me. 
That valley was to me (in a maimer) the cradle of 
a new existence : in the river that winds through it, 
my spirit was baptised in the waters of Helicon ! 

I returned home, and soon after set out on my 
journey with unworn heart and untired feet. My 
way lay through Worcester and Gloucester, and by 
Upton, where I thought of Tom Jones and the 
adventure of the muff. I remember getting com- 
pletely wet through one day, and stopping at an 
inn (I think it was at Tewkesbury) where I sat 
up all night to read ' Paul and Virginia.' Sweet 
were the showers in early youth that drenched my 
body, and sweet the drops of pity that fell upon 
the books I read! I recollect a remark of 
Coleridge's upon this very book, — that nothing 
could show the gross indelicacy of French man- 
ners and the entire corruption of their ima- 
gination more strongly than the behaviour of 
the heroine in the last fatal scene, who turns 
away from a person on board the sinking vessel, 
that offers to save her life, because he has 
thrown off his clothes to assist him in swimming. 
Was this a time to think of such a circumstance ? 
I once hinted to Wordsworth, as we were sailing in 
his boat on Grasmere lake, that I thought he had 
borrowed the idea of his ' Poems on the Naming 
of Places ' from the local inscriptions of the same 



WITH POETS. 21 

kind in ' Paul and Virginia.' He did not own 
the obligation, and stated some distinction without 
a difference, in defence of his claim to originality. 
Any, the slightest variation, would be sufficient for 
this purpose in his mind ; for whatever he added 
or altered would inevitably be worth all that any 
one else had done, and contain the marrow of 
the sentiment. — I was still two days before the 
time fixed for my arrival, for I had taken care to 
set out early enough. I stopped these two days at 
Bridge water, and when I was tired of sauntering on 
the banks of its muddy river, returned to the inn, 
and read ' Camilla.' So have I loitered my life 
away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to 
plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased 
me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me 
happy ; but wanting that, have wanted everything ! 

I arrived, and was well received. The country 
about Nether Stowey is beautiful, green and hilly, 
and near the sea-shore. I saw it but the other 
day, after an interval of twenty years, from a hill 
near Taunton. How was the map of my life 
spread out before me, as the map of the country lay 
at my feet ! In the afternoon, Coleridge took me 
over to All-Foxden, a romantic old family mansion 
of the St Aubins, where Wordsworth lived. It 
was then in the possession of a friend of the poet's, 
who gave him the free use of it. Somehow that 



22 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE 

period (the time just after the French Kevolution) 
was not a time when nothing was given for nothing. 
The mind opened, and a softness might be per- 
ceived coming over the heart of individuals, be- 
neath " the scales that fence " our self-interest. 
Wordsworth himself was from home, but his sister 
kept house, and set before us a frugal repast ; and 
we had free access to her brother's poems, the 
'Lyrical Ballads,' which were still in manuscript, 
or in the form of ' Sybilline Leaves.' I dipped 
into a few of these with great satisfaction, and with 
the faith of a novice. I slept that night in an old 
room with blue hangings, and covered with the 
round-faced family portraits of the age of George I 
and II, and from the wooded declivity of the ad- 
joining park that overlooked my window, at the 
dawn of day, could 

"hear the loud stag speak." 

In the outset of life (and particularly at this 
time I felt it so) our imagination has a body to it. 
We are in a state between sleeping and waking, 
and have indistinct but glorious glimpses of strange 
shapes, and there is always something to come 
better than what we see. As in our dreams the 
fulness of the blood gives warmth and reality to 
the coinage of the brain, so in youth our ideas are 
clothed, and fed, and pampered with our good 



WITH POETS. 23 

spirits ; we breathe thick with thoughtless happi- 
ness, the weight of future years presses on the 
strong pulses of the heart, and we repose with 
undisturbed faith in truth and good. As we ad- 
vance, we exhaust our fund of enjoyment and of 
hope. We are no longer wrapped in lamb's-u-ool, 
lulled in Elysium. As we taste the pleasures of 
life, then spirit evaporates, the sense palls ; and 
noTEng is left but the phantoms, the lifeless sha- 
dows of what 7^sZ^i .' 

That morning, as soon as breakfast was over, 
we strolled out into the park, and seating our- 
selves on the trunk of an old ash-tree that stretched 
along the ground, Coleridge read aloud with a 
sonorous and musical voice, the ballad of ' Betty 
Foy.' I was not critically or sceptically inclined. 
I saw touches of truth and nature, and took the 
rest for granted. But in the 'Thorn,' the 'MadV 
Mother,' and the ' Complaint of a Poor Indian 
Woman,' I felt that deeper power and pathos 
which have been since acknowledged, 

" In spite of pride, in erring reason's spite/' 

as the characteristics of this author ; and the sense 
of a new style and a new spirit in poetry came over 
me. It had to me something of the effect that * 
arises from the turning up of the fresh soil, or of 
the first welcome breath of Spring, 

"While yet the trembling year is unconfirmed." 



24 MY FIEST ACQUAINTANCE 

Coleridge and myself walked back to Stowey that 
evening, and his voice sounded high 

" Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, 
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," 

as we passed through echoing grove, by fairy stream 
or waterfall, gleaming in the summer moonlight ! 
He lamented that Wordsworth was not prone 
enough to believe in the traditional superstitions of 
the place, and that there was a something corporeal, 
a matter-of-fact-ness, a clinging to the palpable, or 
often to the petty, in his poetry, in consequence. 
C^His genius was not a spirit that descended to him 
through the air ; it sprung out of the ground like a 
flower, or unfolded itself from a green spray, on 
which the goldfinch sang. He said, however (if I 
remember right), that this objection must be con- 
fined to his descriptive pieces, that his philosophic 
poetry had a grand and comprehensive spirit in it, 
so that his soul seemed to inhabit the universe like 
a palace, and to discover truth by intuition, rather 
than by deduction. The next day Wordsworth 
arrived from Bristol at Coleridge's cottage. I 
think I see him now. He answered in some 
degree to his friend's description of him, but 
was more gaunt and Don Quixote-like. He was 
quaintly dressed (according to the costume of that 
unconstrained period) in a brown fustian jacket 
and striped pantaloons. There was something of 



/ 






WITH POETS. 25 

a roll, a lounge in his gait, not unlike his own 
' Peter Bell.' There was a severe, worn pressure I 
of thought about his temples, a fire in his eye (as | 
if he saw something in objects more than the out- f 
ward appearance), an intense, high, narrow fore- I 
head, a Eoman nose, cheeks furrowed by strong 
purpose and feeling, and a convulsive inclination I 
to laughter about the mouth, a good deal at van- \ 
ance with the solemn, stately expression of the rest f 
of his face. Chantry's bust wants the marking I 
traits ; but he was teased into making it regular 
and heavy : Haydon's head of him, introduced 
into the Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem, is the 
most like his drooping weight of thought and 
expression. He sat down and talked very naturally 
and freely, with a mixture of clear gushing ac- 
cents hi his voice, a deep guttural intonation, and 
a strong tincture of the northern burr, like the 
crust on wine. He instantly began to make havoc 
of the half of a Cheshire cheese on the table, and 
said triumphantly that " his marriage with experi- 
ence had not been so productive as Mr Southey's 
in teaching him a knowledge of the good things of 
this life." He had been to see the ' Castle Spec- 
tre' by Monk Lewis, while at Bristol, and described 
it very well. He said " it fitted the taste of the 
audience like a glove." Tins ad cajrtandum merit 
was however by no means a recommendation of it, 



26 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE 

according to the severe principles of the new school, 
which reject rather than court popular effect. 
Wordsworth, looking out of the low r , latticed win- 
l dow, said, "• How beautifully the sun sets on that 
: yellow bank I" I thought within mvself, " With 
what eyes these poets see nature !" and ever after, 
when I saw the sun-set stream upon the objects 
facmg it, conceived I had made a discovery, or 
thanked Mr Wordsworth for having made One for 
me ! We went over to All-Foxden again the day 
following, and Wordsworth read us the story of 
' Peter Bell' in the open air ; and the comment 
upon it by his face and voice was very different 
from that of some later critics ! Whatever might be 
thought of the poem, " his face was as a book where 
men might read strange matters," and he announced 
the fate of his hero in prophetic tones. There is 
a chaunt in the recitation both of Coleridge and 
Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearer, 
and disarms the judgment. Perhaps they have J 
deceived themselves by making habitual use of this 
ambiguous accompaniment. Coleridge's manner 
is more full, animated, and varied ; Wordsworth's 
more equable, sustained, and internal. The one \ 
might be termed more dramatic, the other more 
lyrical. Coleridge has told me that he himself 
iked to compose in walking over uneven ground/ 
or breaking through the straggling branches of a 



WITH POETS. 27 

copse-wood ; whereas Wordsworth always wrote (if 
he could) walking up and down a straight gravel- 
walk, or in some spot where the continuity of his 
verse met with no collateral interruption. Return- 
ing that same evening, I got into a metaphysical 
argument with Wordsworth, while Coleridge was 
explaining the different notes of the nightingale to 
his sister, in which we neither of us succeeded in 
making ourselves perfectly clear and intelligible. 
Thus I passed three weeks at Nether Stowey and 
in the neighbourhood, generally devoting the after- 
noons to a delightful chat in an arbour made of bark 
by the poet's friend Tom Poole, sitting under two 
fine elm-trees, and hstenhig to the bees humming 
round us, while we quaffed our flip. It was agreed, 
among other things, that we should make a jaunt 
down the Bristol- Channel, as far as Linton. We 
set off together on foot, Coleridge, John Chester, 
and I. This Chester was a native of Nether 
Stowey, one of those who were attracted to Cole- 
ridge's discourse as flies are to honey, or bees in 
swarroing-time to the sound of a brass pan. He 
" followed in the chase, like a dog who hunts, not 
like one that made up the cry." He had on a 
brown cloth coat, boots, and corduroy breeches, 
was low in stature, bow-legged, had a drag in his 
walk like a drover, which he assisted by a hazel 
switch, and kept on a sort of trot by the side of 



28 MY FIEST ACQUAINTANCE 

Coleridge, like a running footman by a state coach, 
that he might not lose a syllable or sound that fell 
from Coleridge's lips. He told me his private 
opinion, that Coleridge was a wonderful man. He 
scarcely opened his lips, much less offered an 
opinion the whole way : yet of the three, had I to 
choose during that journey, I would be John 
Chester. He afterwards followed Coleridge into 
Germany, where the Kantean philosophers were 
puzzled how to bring him under any of their cate- 
gories. When he sat down at table with his idol, 
John's felicity was complete ; Sir Walter Scott's, 
or Mr Blackwood's, when they sat down at the 
same table with the King, was not more so. We 
passed Dunster on our right, a small town between 
the brow of a hill and the sea. I remember eyeing 
it wistfully as it lay below us : contrasted with the 
woody scene around, it looked as clear, as pure, as 
embrowned and ideal as any landscape I have seen 
since, of Gaspar Poussin's or Domenichino's. We 
had a long day's march — (our feet kept time to the 
echoes of Coleridge's tongue) — through Minehead 
and by the Blue Anchor, and on to Linton, which 
we did not reach till near midnight, and where we 
had some difficulty in making a lodgment. We 
however knocked the people of the house up at 
last, and we were repaid for our apprehensions and 
fatigue by some excellent rashers of fried bacon 



WITH POETS. 29 

and eggs. The view in coming along had been 
splendid. We walked for miles and miles on dark 
brown heaths overlooking the Channel, with the 
Welsh hills beyond, and at times descended into 
little sheltered valleys close by the sea-side, with a 
smuggler's face scowling by us, and then had to 
ascend conical hills with a path winding up through 
a coppice to a barren top, like a monk's shaven 
crown, from one of which I pointed out to Cole- 
ridge's notice the bare masts of a vessel on the 
very edge of the horizon and within the red-orbed 
disk of the setting sun, like his own spectre-ship in 
the 'Ancient Mariner.' At Linton the character 
of the sea-coast becomes more marked and rugged. 
There is a place called the Valley of Rocks (I sus- 
pect this was only the poetical name for it) bedded 
among precipices overhanging the sea, with rocky 
caverns beneath, into which the waves dash, and 
where the sea-gull for ever wheels its screaming 
flight. On the tops of these are huge stones thrown 
transverse, as if an earthquake had tossed them 
there, and behind these is a fretwork of perpendi- 
cular rocks, something like the Giant's Causeway. 
A thunder-storm came on while we were at the 
inn, and Coleridge was running out bareheaded to 
enjoy the commotion of the elements in the Valley 
of Rocks, but as if in spite, the clouds only mut- 
tered a few angiy sounds, and let fall a few refresh- 



30 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE 

ing drops. Coleridge told me that he and Words- 
worth were to have made this place the scene of a 
prose-tale, which was to have been in the manner 
of, but far superior to, the ' Death of Abel,' but 
they had relinquished the design. In the morning 
of the second day, we breakfasted luxuriously in an 
old-fashioned parlour, on tea, toast, eggs, and honey, 
in the very sight of the bee-hives from which it had 
been taken, and a garden full of thyme and wild 
flowers that had produced it. On this occasion 
Coleridge spoke of Virgil's 'Georgics/ but not well. 
I do not think he had much feeling for the classi- 
cal or elegant. It was. in this room that we found 
a little worn-out copy of the ■ Seasons,' lying in a 
window-seat, on which Coleridge exclaimed, " That 
is time fame ! " He said Thomson was a great 
poet, rather than a good one ; his style was as me- 
retricious as his thoughts were natural. He spoke 
of Cowper as the best modem poet. He said the 
'Lyrical Ballads' were an experiment about to be 
tried by him and Wordsworth, to see how far the 
public taste would endure poetry written in a more 
natural and simple style than had hitherto been 
attempted ; totally discarding the artifices of poeti- 
cal diction, and making use only of such words as 
had probably been common in the most ordinary 
language since the clays of Henry II. Some com- 
parison was introduced between Shakspeare and 



WITH POETS. 31 

Hilton. He said "he hardly knew which to prefer. 
Shakspeare appeared to him a mere stripling in the 
art ; he was as tall and as strong, with infinitely 
more activity than Milton, hut he never appeared 
to have come to man's estate ; or if he had, he 
would not have been a man, hut a monster." He 
spoke with contempt of Gray, and with intolerance 
of Pope. He did not like the versification of the 
latter. He observed that ' ' the ears of these couplet- 
writers might be charged with having short me- 
mories, that could not retain the harmony of whole 
passages." He thought little of Junius as a writer; 
he had a dislike of Dr Johnson; and a much 
higher opinion of Burke as an orator and politician, 
than of Fox or Pitt. He however thought him 
very inferior in richness of style and imagery to 
some of our elder prose- writers, particularly Jeremy 
Taylor. He liked Kichardson, but not Fielding ; 
nor could I get him to enter into the merits of 



* He had no idea of pictures, of Claude or Raphael, and 
at this time I had as little as he. He sometimes gives a 
striking account at present of the Cartoons at Pisa, by 
Euffamalco and others ; of one in particular, where Death 
is seen in the air brandishing his scythe, and the great and 
mighty of the earth shudder at his approach, while the 
beggars and the wretched kneel to him as their deliverer. 
He would of course understand so broad and fine a moral 
as this at any time. 



32 MY FIEST ACQUAINTANCE 

* Caleb Williams.'* In short, he was profound 
and discriminating with respect to those authors 
whom he liked, and where he gave his judgment 
fair play ; capricious, perverse, and prejudiced in 
his antipathies and distastes. We loitered on the 
" ribbed sea-sands," in such talk as this a whole 
morning, and I recollect met with a curious sea- 
weed, of which John Chester told us the country 
name ! A fisherman gave Coleridge an account of 
a boy that had been drowned the day before, and 
that they had tried to save him at the risk of their 
own lives. He said " he did not know how it was 
that they ventured, but, Sir, we have a nature 
towards one another." This expression, Coleridge 
remarked to me, was a fine illustration of that 
theory of disinterestedness which I (in common 
with Butler) had adopted. I broached to him an 
argument of mine to prove that likeness was not 
mere association of ideas. I said that the mark in 
the sand put one in mind of a man's foot, not be- 
cause it was part of a former impression of a man's 
foot (for it was quite new), but because it was like 
the shape of a man's foot. He assented to the 
justness of this distinction (which I have explained 
at length elsewhere, for the benefit of the curious) 
and John Chester listened ; not from any interest 
in the subject, but because he was astonished that 
I should be able to suggest anything to Coleridge 



WITH POETS. 33 

that he did not already know. We returned on 
the third morning, and Coleridge remarked the 
silent cottage-smoke curling up the valleys w T here, 
a few evenings before, we had seen the lights 
gleaming through the dark. 

In a day or two after we arrived at Stowey, we 
set out, I on my return home, and he for Germany. 
It was a Sunday morning, and he w r as to preach 
that day for Dr Toulmin of Taunton. I asked him 
if he had prepared anything for the occasion ? He 
said he had not even thought of the text, but should 
as soon as we parted. I did not go to hear him, — 
this w r as a fault, — but w r e met in the evening at 
Bridgewater. The next day we had a long day's 
walk to Bristol, and sat down, I recollect, by a 
w T ell-side on the road, to cool ourselves and satisfy 
our thirst, when Coleridge repeated to me some 
descriptive lines from his tragedy of ' Bemorse ; ' 
which I must say became his mouth and that occa- 
sion better than they, some years after, did Mr 
Elliston's and the Drury-lane boards, — 

" Oh memory ! shield me from the world's poor strife, 
And give those scenes thine everlasting life." 

I saw no more of him for a year or two, during 

which period he had been wandering in the Hartz 

Forest in Germany ; and his return was cometary, 

meteorous, unlike his setting out. It was not till 

some time after that I knew his friends Lamb and 

c 



34 MY FIEST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS. 

Southey. The last always appears to me (as I 
first saw him) with a common-place book under his 
arm, and the first with a bon-mot in his mouth. It 
was at Godwin's that I met him with Holcroft and 
Coleridge, where they were disputing fiercely which 
was the best — Man as he was, or man as he is to 
be. " Give me," says Lamb, " man as he is not to 
be." This saying was the beginning of a friend- 
ship between us, which I believe still continues. — 
Enough of this for the present. 

" But there is matter for another rhyme, 
And I to this may add a second tale." 

1828. 



ESSAY II. 

OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO 

HAVE SEEN. 



u Come like shadows — so depart." 

Lamb it was, I think, who suggested this subject, 
as well as the defence of Guy Faux, which I urged 
him to execute. As, however, he would undertake 
neither, I suppose I must do both — a task for 
which he would have been much fitter, no less 
from the temerity than the felicity of his pen — 

" Never so sure our rapture to create 
As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate." 

Compared with him I shall, I fear, make but a 
common-place piece of business of it ; but I should 
be loth the idea was entirely lost, and besides I 
may avail myself of some hints of his in the pro- 
gress of it. I am sometimes, I suspect, a better 
reporter of the ideas of other people than expounder 
of my own. I pursue the one too far into paradox 



86 OF PERSONS 

or mysticism ; the others I am not bound to follow 
farther than I like, or than seems fair and rea- 
sonable. 

On the question being started, A said, " I 

suppose the two first persons you would choose to 
see would be the two greatest names in English 
literature, Sir Isaac Newton and Mr Locke ?" In 

this A , as usual, reckoned without his host. 

Every one burst out a-laughing at the expression 
of Lamb's face, in which impatience was restrained 
by courtesy. " Yes, the greatest names," he stam- 
mered out hastily, " but they were not persons — 
not persons." — "Not persons ?" said A , look- 
ing wise and foolish at the same time, afraid his 
triumph might be premature. " That is," rejoined 
Lamb, " not characters, you know. By Mr Locke 
and Sir Isaac Newton, you mean the ' Essay on 
the Human Understanding,' and the ' Principia,' 
which we have to this day. Beyond their contents 
there is nothing personally interesting in the men. 
But what we want to see any one bodily for, is 
when there is something peculiar, striking in the 
individuals, more than we can learn from their 
writings, and yet are curious to know. I dare say 
Locke and Newton were very like Knellers por- 
traits of them. But who could paint Shakspeare ?" 

— " Ay," retorted A , "there it is; then I 

suppose you would prefer seeing him and Milton 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. M 

instead ?" — " No," said Lamb, " neither. I have 
seen so much of Shakspeare on the stage and on 
book-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantel-pieces, 
that I am quite tired of the everlasting repetition : 
and as to Milton's face, the impressions that have 
come down to us of it I do not like ; it is too 
starched and puritanical ; and I should be afraid 
of losing some of the manna of his poetry in the 
leaven of his countenance and the precisian's band 

and gown." — " I shall guess no more," said A . 

" Who is it, then, you would like to see ' in his 
habit as he lived,' if you had your choice of the 
whole range of English literature ?" Lamb then 
named Sir Thomas Brown and Fulke Greville, 
the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, as the two worthies 
whom he should feel the greatest pleasure to en- 
counter on the floor of his apartment in their 
night-gown and slippers, and to exchange friendly 
greeting with them. At this A laughed out- 
right, and conceived Lamb was jesting with him ; 
but as no one followed his example, he thought 
there might be something in it, and waited for 
an explanation in a state of whimsical suspense. 
Lamb then (as well as I can remember a conversa- 
tion that passed twenty years ago — how time slips !) 
went on as follows. " The reason why I pitch 
upon these two authors is, that their writings are 
riddles, and they themselves the most mysterious 



88 OF PERSONS 

of personages. They resemble the soothsayers of 
old, who dealt in dark hints and doubtful oracles ; 
and I should like to ask them the meaning of what 
no mortal but themselves, I should suppose, can 
fathom. There is Dr Johnson : I have no curiosity, 
no strange uncertainty about him ; he and Boswell 
together have pretty well let me into the secret of 
what passed through his mind. He and other 
writers like him are sufficiently explicit : my friends, 
whose repose I should be tempted to disturb (were 
it in my power), are implicit, inextricable, inscru- 
table. 

" When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose- 
composition the ' Urn-burial,' I seem to myself to 
look into a deep abyss, at the bottom of which are 
hid pearls and rich treasure ; or it is like a stately 
labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I 
would invoke the spirit of the author to lead me 
through it. Besides, who would not be curious to 
see the lineaments of a man who, having himself 
been twice married, wished that mankind were pro- 
pagated like trees! As to Fulke Greville, he is 
like nothing but one of his own ' Prologues spoken 
by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a truly for- 
midable and inviting personage : his style is apoca- 
lyptical, cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an 
apparition to untie ; and for the unravelling a pas- 
sage or two. I would stand the brunt of an encounter 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 39 

with so portentous a commentator !" — " I am afraid 

in that case," said A , " that if the mystery 

were once cleared up, the merit might be lost;" — 
and turning to me, whispered a friendly apprehen- 
sion, that while Lamb continued to admire these old 
crabbed authors, he would never become a popular 
writer. Dr Donne was mentioned as a writer of 
the same period, with a very interesting counte- 
nance, whose history was singular, and whose 
meaning was often quite as uncomeatable, without a 
personal citation from the dead, as that of any of 
his contemporaries. The volume was produced; 
and while some one was expatiating on the exquisite 
simplicity and beauty of the portrait prefixed to 

the old edition, A got hold of the poetry, and 

exclaiming " What have we here ?" read the 
following : — 

M Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there — 
She giyes the best light to his sphere, 
Or each is both and all, and so 
They unto one another nothing owe." 

There was no resisting this, till Lamb, seizing 
the volume, turned to the beautiful ' Lines to his 
Mistress,' dissuading her from accompanying him 
abroad, and read them with suffused features and a 
faltering tongue. 

" By our first strange and fatal interview, 
By all desires which thereof did ensue, 



40 OF PEESONS 

By our long starving hopes, by that remorse 
Which my words' masculine persuasive force 
Begot in thee, and by the memory 
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me, 
I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath, 
By all pains which want and divorcement hath, 
I conjure thee ; and all the oaths which I 
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy 
Here I unswear, and overswear them thus — 
Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous. 
Temper, oh fair Love ! love's impetuous rage, 
Be my true mistress still, not my feign'd Page ; 
I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind 
Thee ! only worthy to nurse it in my mind. 
Thirst to come back ; oh, if thou die before, 
My soul from other lands to thee shall soar. 
Thy (else almighty) beauty cannot move 
Eage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,. 
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness ; thou hast read 
Kow roughly he in pieces shivered 
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he loved. 
Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have proved 
Dangers unurged : Feed on this flattery, 
That absent lovers one with th' other be. 
Dissemble nothing, not a boy ; nor change 
Thy body's habit, nor mind ; be not strange 
To thyself only. All will spy in thy face 
A blushing, womanly, discovering grace. 
Bichly-clothed apes are call'd apes, and as soon 
Eclipsed as bright we call the moon the moon. 
Men of France, changeable cameleons, 
Spitals of diseases, shops of fashions, 
Love's fuellers, and the rightest company 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 41 

Of players, wliicli upon the world's stage be, 

Will quickly know thee stay here I for thee 

England is only a worthy gallery, 
To walk in expectation ; till from thence 
Our greatest King call thee to his presence. 
When I am gone, dream me some happiness, 
Nor let thy looks our long-hid love confess, 
Nor praise, nor dispraise me ; nor bless, nor curse 
Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse 
With midnight startings, crying out, Oh, oh, 
Nurse, oh, my love is slain, I saw him go 
O'er the white Alps alone ; I saw him, I, 
Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die. 
Augur me better -chance, except dread Jove 
Think it enough for me to have had thy love." 

Some one then inquired of Lamb if we could 
not see from the window the Temple walk in 
which Chaucer used to take his exercise ; and on 
his name being put to the vote, I was pleased to 
find that there was a general sensation in his 

favour in all but A , who said something about 

the ruggedness of the metre, and even objected to 
the quaintness of the orthography. I was vexed 
at this superficial gloss, pertinaciously reducing 
everything to its own trite level, and asked " if 
he did not think it would be worth while to scan 
the eye that had first greeted the Muse in that 
dim twilight and early dawn of English literature ; 
to see the head, round which the visions of fancy 
must have played like gleams of inspiration or a 



42 OF PERSONS 

sudden glory ; to watch those lips that ' lisped in 
numbers, for the numbers came ' — as by a miracle, 
or as if the dumb should speak ? Nor was it alone 
that he had been the first to tune his native tongue 
(however imperfectly to modem ears) ; but he was 
himself a noble, manly character, standing before 
his age and striving to advance it; a pleasant 
humourist withal, who has not only handed down 
to us the living manners of his time, but had, no 
doubt, store of curious and quaint devices, and 
would make as hearty a companion as mine Host 
of the Tabard. His interview with Petrarch is 
fraught with interest. Yet I would rather have 
seen Chaucer in company with the author of 
• Decameron,' and have heard them exchange their 
best stories together, — the Squire's Tale against 
the Story of the Falcon, the Wife of Bath's Pro- 
logue against the Adventures of Friar Albert. 
How fine to see the high mysterious brow which 
learning then wore, relieved by the gay, familiar 
tone of men of the world, and by the courtesies of 
genius ! Surely, the thoughts and feelings which 
passed through the minds of these great revivers 
of learning, these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth 
of letters, must have stamped an expression on 
their features as different from the modems as 
their books, and well worth the perusal. * Dante, " 
I continued, " is as interesting a person as his 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 43 

-own Ugolino, one whose lineaments curiosity would 
as eagerly devour in order to penetrate his spirit, 
and the only one of the Italian poets I should care 
much to see. There is a fine portrait of Ariosto 
by no less a hand than Titian's ; light, Moorish, 
spirited, hut not answering our idea. The same 
artist's large colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the 
only likeness of the kind that has the effect of 
conversing with 'the mighty dead;' and this is 
truly spectral, ghastly, necromantic." Lamb put 
it to me if I should like to see Spenser as well as 
Chaucer; and I answered without hesitation, " No ; 
for that his beauties were ideal, visionary, not 
palpable or personal, and therefore connected with 
less curiosity about the man. His poetry was the 
essence of romance, a very halo round the bright 
orb of fancy ; and the bringing in the individual 
might dissolve the charm. No tones of voice could 
come up to the mellifluous cadence of his verse ; 
no form but of a winged angel could vie with the 
airy shapes he has described. He was (to my 
apprehension) rather a ' creature of the element, 
that lived in the rainbow and played in the 
plighted clouds,' than an ordinary mortal. Or if 
he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere 
vision, like one of his own pageants, and that he 
should pass by unquestioned like a dream or 
sound' — 



44 OF PEESONS 



That was Arion crown'd : 



So went he playing on the wat'ry plain.' " 

Captain Bumey muttered something about Co- 
lumbus, and Martin Burney hinted at the Wander- 
ing Jew ; but the last was set aside as spurious, 
and the first made over to the New "World. 

" I should like," said Mrs Eeynolds, " to have 
seen Pope talk with Patty Blount ; and I have 
seen Goldsmith." Every one turned round to look 
at Mrs Eeynolds, as if by so doing they could get 
a sight at Goldsmith. 

" Where," asked a harsh, croaking voice, iC was 
Dr Johnson in the years 1745-6 ? He did not 
write anything that we know of, nor is there any 
account of him in Boswell during those two years. 
Was he in Scotland with the Pretender? He 
seems to have passed through the scenes in the 
Highlands in company with Boswell many years 
after 'with lack-lustre eye,' yet as if they were 
familiar to him, or associated in his mind with 
interests that he durst not explain. If so, it would 
be an additional reason for my liking him ; a ndl 
would give something to have seen him seated in 
the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain, and 
penning the Proclamation to all true subjects and 
adherents of the legitimate Government." 

" I thought," said A , turning short round 

upon Lamb, " that you of the Lake School did not 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 45 

like Pope ?" — " Not like Pope ! My dear sir, you 
must be under a mistake — I can read him over 
and over for ever ! " — " Why, certainly, the 'Essay 
on Man ' must be allowed to be a masterpiece." — 
" It may be so, but I seldom look into it." — " Oh! 
then it's his Satires you admire ? " — " No, not his 
Satires, but his friendly Epistles and his compli- 
ments." — " Compliments ! I did not know he ever 
made any."-.—" The finest," said Lamb, "that were 
ever paid by the wit of man. Each of them is 
worth an estate for life — nay, is an immortality. 
There is that superb one to Lord Cornbury : 

' Despise low joys, low gains ; 
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains ; 
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains/ 

Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous 
praise ? Arid then that noble apotheosis of his 
friend Lord Mansfield (however little deserved), 
when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds — 

' Conspicuous scene ! another yet is nigh, 
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie ; 
Where Murray (long enough his country's pride) 
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde ! ' 

And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he 

addresses Lord Bolingbroke — 

* Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine, 
Oh ! all-accomplish'd St John, deck thy shrine 1 * 

Or turn," continued Lamb, with a slight hectic on 



46 OF PERSONS 

his cheek and his eye glistening, u to his list of 
early friends : 

' But why then publish ] Granville the polite, 
And knowing "Walsh, would tell me I could write ; 
Well-natured Grarth inflamed with early praise, 
And Congreye loved, and Swift endured my lays : 
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheflield read, 
Evn mitred Rochester would nod the head ; 
And St John's self (great Dryden's friend before) 
Received with open arms one poet more. 
Happy my studies, if by these approved ! 
Happier their author, if by these beloved ! 
From these the world will judge of men and books, 
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.'" 

Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing 
down the book, he said, " Do you think I would 
not wish to have been friends with such a man as 
this?" 

" What say you to Dry den ?" — " He rather 
made a show of himself, and courted popularity in 
that lowest temple of fame, a coffee-house, so as in 
some measure to vulgarise one's idea of him. Pope, 
on the contrary, reached the very beau ideal of what 
a poet's life should be ; and his fame while living 
seemed to be an emanation from that which w r as to 
circle his name after death. He was so far enviable 
(and one would feel proud to have witnessed the 
rare spectacle in him) that he was almost the only 
poet and man of genius who met with his reward 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 47 

on this side of the tomb, who realised in friends, 
fortune, the esteem of the world, the most sanguine 
hopes of a youthful ambition, and who found that 
sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime 
which they would be thought anxious to bestow 
upon him after his death. Read Gay's verses to 
him on his supposed return from Greece, after his 
translation of Homer was finished, and say if you 
would not gladly join the bright procession that 
welcomed him home, or see it once more land at 
Whitehall stairs."— " Still," said Mrs Reynolds, 
" I would rather have seen him talking with Patty 
Blount, or riding by in a coronet-coach with Lady 
Mary Wortley Montagu ! " 

Erasmus Phillips, who was deep in a game of 
piquet at the other end of the room, whispered to 
Martin Burney to ask if Junius would not be a fit 
person to invoke from the dead. " Yes," said 
Lamb, " provided he would agree to lay aside his 
mask." 

We were now at a stand for a short time, when 
Fielding was mentioned as a candidate : only one, 
however, seconded the proposition. " Richardson ? " 
— " By all means, but only to look at him through 
the glass-door of his back-shop, hard at work upon 
one of his novels (the most extraordinary contrast 
that ever was presented between an author and his 
works) ; not to let him come behind his counter, 



48 OF PERSONS 

lest he should want you to turn customer, -or to go 
up s tah's with him, lest he should offer to read the 
first manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison, which 
was originally written in eight-and-twenty volumes 
octavo, or get out the letters of his female corre- 
spondents, to prove that Joseph Andrews was low." 

There was hut one statesman in the whole of 
English history that any one expressed the least 
desire to see — Oliver Cromwell, with his fine, frank, 
rough ; pimply face, and wily policy ; and one en- 
thusiast, John Bmiyan, the immortal author of the 
1 Pilgrim's Progress.' It seemed that if he came 
into the room, dreams would follow him, and that 
each person would nod under his golden cloud, 
" nigh- sphered hi Heaven/' a canopy as strange 
and stately as any in Homer. 

Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name 
was received with the greatest enthusiasm, who was 
proposed by Baron Field. He presently superseded 
both Hogarth and Handel, who had been talked of, 
but then it was on condition that he should act in 
tragedy and comedy, in the play and the farce, 
* Lear ' and ' Wildair ' and 'Abel Drugger.' What 
a sight for sore eyes that would be ! Who would 
not part with a year's income at least, almost with 
a year of his natural life, to be present at it? 
Besides, as he could not act alone, and recitations 
are unsatisfactory things', what a troop he must 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 49 

bring with him — the silver-tongued Barry, and 
Quin, and Shuter and Weston, and Mrs Clive and 
Mrs Pritchard, of whom I have heard my father 
speak as so great a favourite when he was young ! 
This would indeed be a revival of the dead, the 
restoring of art ; and so much the more desirable, 
as such is the lurking scepticism mingled with our 
overstrained admiration of past excellence, that 
though we have the speeches of Burke, the portraits 
of Beynolds, the writings of Goldsmith, and the 
conversation of Johnson, to show what people could 
do at that period, and to confirm the universal 
testimony to the merits of Garrick ; yet, as it was 
before our time, we have our misgivings, as if he 
was probably after all little better than a Bartlemy- 
fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet 
coat and laced cocked-hat. For one, I should like 
to have seen and heard with my own eyes and 
ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one was 
ever moved by the true histrionic cestus, it was 
Garrick. When he followed the Ghost hi ' Hamlet, * 
he did not drop the sword, as most actors do, 
behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the 
whole way round, so fully was he possessed with 
the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight of his 
part for a moment. Once at a splendid dinner- 
party at Lord 's, they suddenly missed 

Garrick, and could not imagine what was become 



50 OF PERSONS 

of him, till they were drawn to the window by the 
convulsive screams and peals of laughter of a young 
negro boy, who was rolling on the ground in an 
ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicing a 
turkey-cock in the court-yard, with his coat-tail 
stuck out behind, and in a seeming flutter of 
feathered rage and pride. Of our party only two 
persons present had seen the British Eoscius ; and 
they seemed as willing as the rest to renew their 
acquaintance with their old favourite. 

We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid- 
career of this fanciful speculation, by a grumbler 
in a corner, who declared it was a shame to make 
all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, 
to the neglect and exclusion of the fine old 
dramatists, the contemporaries and rivals of 
Shakspeare. Lamb said he had anticipated this 
objection when he had named the author of 
' Mustapha and Alaham :' and out of caprice 
insisted upon keeping him to represent the set, in 
preference to the wild hair-brained enthusiast Kit 
Marlowe; to the sexton of St Ann's, Webster, 
with his melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads ; 
to Deckar, who was but a garrulous proser ; to the 
voluminous Hey wood ; and even to Beaumont and 
Fletcher, whom we might offend by complimenting 
the wrong author on their joint productions. Lord 
Brook, on the contrary, stood quite by himself, or, 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 51 

in Cowley's words, was " a vast species alone." 
Some one hinted at the circumstance of his being 
a lord, which rather startled Lamb, but he said a 
ghost would perhaps dispense with strict etiquette, 
on being regularly addressed by his title. Ben 
Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally. Some 
were afraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, 
who was not present to defend himself. k ' If 
he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud, 
il there is Godwin can match him." At length, 
his romantic visit to Drummond of Hawthorn- 
den w r as mentioned, and turned the scale in his 
favour. 

Lamb inquired if there was any one that was 
hanged that I would choose to mention ? And I 
answered, Eugene Aram. The name of the 
' Admirable Crichton " was suddenly started as a 
splendid example of waste talents, so different from 
the generality of his countrymen. This choice 
was mightily approved by a North-Briton pre- 
sent, who declared himself descended from that 
prodigy of learning and accomplishment, and said 
he had family plate in his possession as vouchers 
for the fact, with the initials A. C. — Admirable 
Crichton! Hunt laughed or rather roared as 
heartily at this as I should think he has done for 
many years. 



52 OF PERSONS 

The last-named Mitre-courtier* then wished to 
know whether there were any metaphysicians to 
whom one might he tempted to apply the wizard 
spell ? I replied, there were only six in modern 
times deserving the name — Hohhes, Berkeley, 
Butler, Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz ; and perhaps 
Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusetts man.f As to 
the French, who talked fluently of having created 
this science, there was not a tittle in any of their 
writings that was not to be found literally in the 
authors I had mentioned. [Home Tooke, who 
might have a claim to come in under the head 
of Grammar, was still living.] None of these 
names seemed to excite much interest, and I did 

* Lamb at this time occupied chambers in Mitre court, 
Temple. 

f Lord Bacon is not included in this list, nor do I know 
where he should come in. It is not easy to make room for 
him and his reputation together. This great and celebrated 
man in some of his works recommends it to pour a bottle of 
claret into the ground of a morning, and to stand over it, 
inhaling the perfumes. So he sometimes enriched the dry 
and barren soil of speculation with the fine aromatic spirit 
of his genius. His * Essays ' and his c Advancement of 
Learning ' are works of vast depth and scope of observation. 
The last, though it contains no positive discoveries, is a 
noble chart of the human intellect, and a guide to all 
future inquirers. 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 53 

not plead for the re-appearance of those who might 
he thought best fitted by the abstracted nature of 
their studies for their present spiritual and disem- 
bodied state, and who, even while on this living 
stage, were nearly divested of common flesh and 

blood. As A with an uneasy, fidgetty face 

was about to put some question about Mr Locke 
and Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by Martin 

Burney, who observed, " If J was here, he 

would undoubtedly be for having up those profoimd 
and redoubted socialists, Thomas Aquinas and 
Duns Scotus." I said tins might be fair enough 
in him who had read or fancied he had read the 
original works, but I did not see how we could 
have any right to call up these authors to give an 
account of themselves in person, till we had looked 
into their writings. 

By this time it should seem that some rumour 
of our whimsical deliberation had got wind, and 
had disturbed the irritabile genus in their shadowy 
abodes, for we received messages from several 
candidates that we had just been thinking oL 
Gray declined our invitation, though he had not 
yet been asked : Gay offered to come and bring in 
Ins hand the Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly: 
Steele and Addison left their cards as Captain 
Sentry and Sir Koger de Coverley : Swift came in 
and sat down without speaking a word, and quitted 



54 OF PERSONS 

the room as abruptly : Otway and Chatterton were 
seen lingering on the opposite side of the Styx, 
but could not muster enough between them to pay 
Charon his fare : Thomson fell asleep in the boat, 
and was rowed back again — and Burns sent a low 
fellow, one John Barleycorn, an old companion of 
his who had conducted him to the other world, to 
say that he had during his lifetime been drawn out 
of his retirement as a show, only to be made an 
exciseman of, and that he would rather remain 
where he was. He desired, however, to shake 
hands by his representative — the hand, thus held 
out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously. 
The room was hung round with several por- 
traits of eminent painters. While we were de- 
bating whether we should demand speech with 
these masters of mute eloquence, whose features 
were so famihar to us, it seemed that all at once 
they glided from their frames, and seated them- 
selves at some little distance from us. There was 
Leonardo with his majestic beard and watchful 
eye, having a bust of Archimedes before him; 
next him was Baphael's graceful head turned 
round to the Fornarina ; and on his other side 
was Lucretia Borgia, with calm, golden locks ; 
Michael Angelo had placed the model of St Peter's 
on the table before him ; Correggio had an angel 
at his side ; Titian was seated with his mistress 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 55 

between himself and Giorgione ; Guido was ac- 
companied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box 
from him ; Claude held a mirror in his hand ; Ru- 
bens patted a beautiful panther (led in by a satyr) 
on the head ; Vandyke appeared as his own Paris, 
and Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold chains, 
and jewels, which Sir Joshua eyed closely, holding 
his hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a word 
was spoken ; and as we rose to do them homage, 
they still presented the same surface to the view. 
Not being bond-fide representations of living peo- 
ple, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs 
and dumb show. As soon as they had melted into 
thin air, there w r as a loud noise at the outer door, 
and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghir- 
landaio, who had been raised from the dead by 
their earnest desire to see their illustrious suc- 
cessors — 

" Whose names on earth 
In Fame's eternal records live for aye !" 

Finding them gone, they had no ambition to 
be seen after them, and mournfully withdrew. 
" Egad !" said Lamb, " these are the very fellows 
I should like to have had some talk with, to know 
how r they could see to paint when all was dark 
around them." 

" But shall we have nothing to say," interro- 
gated G. J , " to the Legend of Good Women ?" 

— "Name, name, Mr J ," cried Hunt in a 



56 OF PERSONS 

boisterous tone of frendly exultation, 

many as you please, without reserve or fear of 

molestation !" J was perplexed between so 

many amiable recollections, that the name of the 
lady of his choice expired in a pensive whiff of his 
pipe ; and Lamb impatiently declared for the 
Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs Hutchinson was no 
sooner mentioned, than she carried the day from 
the Duchess. We were the less solicitous on this 
subject of filling up the posthumous lists of Good 
Women, as there was already one in the room as 
good, as sensible, and in all respects as exemplary, 
as the best of them could be for their lives ! "I 
should like vastly to have seen Ninon de rEnclos," 
said that incomparable person ; and this immedi- 
ately put us in mind that we had neglected to pay 
honour due to our friends on the other side of the 
Channel : Voltaire, the patriarch of levity, and 
Rousseau, the father of sentiment ; Montaigne and 
Rabelais (great in wisdom and in wit), Moliere and 
that illustrious group that are collected round 
him (in the print of that subject) to hear him 
read his comedy of the ' Tartuffe' at the house of 
Ninon ; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucault, St 
Evremont, &c. 

" There is one person," said a shrill, querulous 
voice, " I would rather see than all these — Don 
Quixote !" 

" Come, come!" said Hunt; "I thought we 



ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 57 

should have no heroes, real or fabulous. What 
say you, Mr Lamb ? Are you for eking out your 
shadowy list with such names as Alexander, Julius 
Caesar, Tamerlane, or Ghengis Khan ?" — " Excuse 
me," said Lamb ; "on the subject of characters in 
active life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I 
have a crotchet of my own, which I beg leave to 
reserve/' — " No, no ! come, out with your wor- 
thies !"— " What do you think of Guy Fawkes and 
Judas Iscariot ?" Hunt turned an eye upon him 
like a wild Indian, but cordial and full of smo- 
thered glee. " Your most exquisite reason !" was 

echoed on all sides; and A thought that 

Lamb had now fairly entangled himself. " Why,. 
I cannot but think," retorted he of the wistful 
countenance, " that Guy Fawkes, that poor, flut- 
tering annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an 
ill-used gentleman. I would give something to see 
him sitting pale and emaciated, surrounded by his 
matches and Iris barrels of gunpowder, and expect- 
ing the moment that was to transport him to Para- 
dise for his heroic self-devotion ; but if I say any 
more, there is that fellow Godwin will make some- 
thing of it. And as to Judas Iscariot, my reason 
is different. I would fain see the face of him, 
who, having dipped his hand in the same dish 
with the Son of Man, could afterwards betray him. 
I have no conception of such a thing ; nor have I 



58 PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 

ever seen any picture (not even Leonardo's very 
fine one) that gave me the least idea of it." — 
" You have said enough, Mr Lamb, to justify your 
choice." 

" Oh ! ever right, Menenius, — ever right !" 
" There is only one other person I can ever think 
of after this," continued Lamb ; but without men- 
tioning a name that once put on a semblance of 
mortality. " If Shakspeare was to come into the 
room, we should all rise up to meet him ; but if 
that person was to come into it, we should all fall 
down and try to kiss the hem of his garment !" 

As a lady present seemed now to get uneasy at 
the turn the conversation had taken, we rose up to 
go. The morning broke with that dim, dubious 
light by which Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio 
must have seen to paint their earliest works ; and 
we parted to meet again and renew similar topics 
at night, the next night, and the night after that, 
till that night overspread Europe which saw no 
dawn. The same event, in truth, broke up our 
little Congress that broke up the great one. But 
that was to meet again : our deliberations have 
never been resumed. 



ESSAY IIL 
ON PAKTY SPIKIT 



Party spirit is one of the profoundnesses of Satan, 
or, in more modern language, one of the dexterous 
equivoques and contrivances of our self-love, to 
prove that we, and those who agree with us, com- 
bine all that is excellent and praiseworthy in our 
own persons (as in a ring-fence), and that all the 
vices and deformity of human nature take refuge 
with those who differ from us. It is extending 
and fortifying the principle of the amour-pwopre, 
by calling to its aid the esprit de corps, and screen- 
ing and surrounding our favourite propensities and 
obstinate caprices in the hollow squares or dense 
phalanxes of sects and parties This is a happy 
mode of pampering our self-complacency, and per- 
suading ourselves that we, and those who side with 
us, are "the salt of the earth;" of giving vent 
to the morbid humours of our pride, envy, hatred, 
malice, and all uncharitableness, those natural 



60 ON PAJITY SPIRIT. 

secretions of the human heart, under the pretext 
of self-defence, the public safety, or a voice from 
heaven, as it may happen ; and of heaping every 
excellence into one scale, and throwing all the 
obloquy and contempt into the other, in virtue of 
a nickname, a watchword of party, a badge, the 
colour of a ribbon, the cut of a dress. We thus 
desolate the globe, or tear a country in pieces, to 
show that we are the only people fit to live in it ; 
and fancy ourselves angels, while we are playing 
the devil. In this manner, the Huron devours 
the Iroquois, because he is an Iroquois ; and the 
Iroquois the Huron, for a similar reason : neither 
suspects that he does it because he himself is a 
savage, and no better than a wild beast ; and is 
convinced in his own breast that the difference of 
name and tribe makes a total difference in the 
case. The Papist persecutes the Protestant, the 
Protestant persecutes the Papist in his turn ; and 
each fancies that he has a plenary right to do so, 
while he keeps in view only the offensive epithet 
which " cuts the common link of brotherhood 
between them.' 5 The Church of England ill-treated 
the Dissenters, and the Dissenters, when they 
had the opportunity, did not spare the Chmch of 
England. The Whig calls the Tory a knave, the 
Tory compliments the Whig with the same title, 
.and each thinks the abuse sticks to the party- 



ON PARTY SPIRIT. 61 

name, and has nothing to do with himself or the 
generic name of man. On the contrary, it cuts 
both ways ; hut while the Whigs say " The Tory 
is a knave, because he is a Tory," this is as much 
as to say, " I cannot be a knave, because I am a 
Whig ; " and by exaggerating the profligacy of his 
opponent, he imagines he is laying the sure foun- 
dation, and raising the lofty supers tructure, of his 
own praises. But if he says, which is the truth, 
" The Tory is not a rascal, because he is a Tory, 
but because human nature in power, and with the 
temptation, is a rascal," then this would imply 
that the seeds of depravity are sown in his own 
bosom, and might shoot out into full growth and 
luxuriance if he got into place, and this he does 
not wish to develop till he does get into place. 

We may be intolerant even in advocating the 
cause of toleration, and so bent on making pro- 
selytes to free-thinking as to allow no one to tbink 
freely but ourselves. The most boundless liberal- 
ity in appearance may amount in reality to the 
most monstrous ostracism of opinion — not condemn- 
ing this or that tenet, or standing up for this or 
that sect or party, but in a supercilious superiority 
to all sects and parties alike, and proscribing in 
one sweeping clause all arts, sciences, opinions, 
and pursuits but our own. Till the time of Locke 
•and Toland a general toleration was never dreamt 



62 OX PAETY SPIRIT. 

of : it was thought right on all hands to punish 
and discountenance heretics and schismatics, but 
each party alternately claimed to he true Chris- 
tians and Orthodox believers. Daniel De Foe, 
who spent his whole life, and wasted his strength, 
in asserting the right of the Dissenters to a Tole- 
ration (and got nothing for his pains but the pil- 
lory), was scandalised at the proposal of the general 
principle, and was equally strenuous in excluding 
Quakers, Anabaptists, Socinians, Sceptics, and all 
who did not agree in the essentials of Christianity — 
that is, who did not agree with him- — from the 
benefit of such an indulgence to tender consciences. 
We wonder at the cruelties formerly practised 
upon the Jews : is there anything wonderful in it ? 
They were at that time the only people to make a 
butt and a bugbear of, to set up as a mark of 
indignity, and as a foil to our self-love, for the 
ferce naturce principle that is within us, and always 
craving its prey to run down, to worry and make 
sport of at discretion, and without mercy — the 
unvarying uniformity and implicit faith of the Ca- 
tholic Church had imposed silence, and put a curb 
on our jarring dissensions, heart-burnings, and ill- 
blood, so that we had no pretence for quarrelling 
among ourselves for the glory of God or the salva- 
tion of men : — a Jordanus Bruno, an Atheist or 
sorcerer, once in a way, would hardly suffice to 



ON PAKTY SPIKTT. 63 

stay the stomach of our theological rancour ; we 
therefore fell with might and main upon the Jews 
as & forlorn hope in this dearth of objects of spite 
or zeal ; or when the whole of Europe was recon- 
ciled to the bosom of holy Mother Church, went to 
the Holy Land in search of a difference of opinion, 
and a ground of mortal offence : but no sooner was 
there a division of the Christian World, than Papist 
fell on Protestants or Schismatics, and Schismatics 
upon one another, with the same loving fury as 
they had before fallen upon Turks and Jews. The 
disposition is always there, like a muzzled mastiff; 
the pretext only is wanting ; and this is furnished 
by a name, which, as soon as it is affixed to differ- 
ent sects or parties, gives us a licence, we think, 
to let loose upon them all our malevolence, domi- 
neering humour, love of power, and wanton mis- 
chief, as if they were of different species. The 
sentiment of the pious English Bishop was good, 
who, on seeing a criminal led to execution, ex- 
claimed, " There goes my wicked self ! " 

If we look at common patriotism, it will furnish 
an illustration of party spirit. One would think 
by an Englishman's hatred of the French, and his 
readiness to die fighting with and for his country- 
men, that all the nation were united as one man, 
in heart and hand — and so they are in war-time, 
and as an exercise of their loyalty and courage : 



64 ON PABTY SPIRIT. 

"but let the crisis be over, and they cool wonder- 
fully; begin to feel the distinctions of English, 
Irish, and Scotch ; fall out among themselves 
upon some minor distinction ; the same hand that 
was eager to shed the blood of a Frenchman, 
mil not give a crust of bread or a cup of cold water 
to a fellow-coimtryruan in distress ; and the heroes 
who defended the "wooden walls of old England" 
are left to expose their wounds and crippled limbs 
to gain a pittance from the passengers, or to perish 
of hunger, cold, and neglect, in our highways. 
Such is the effect of our boasted nationality : it is 
active, fierce in doing mischief; dormantly luke- 
warm in doing good. We may also see why the 
greatest stress is laid on trifles in religion, and why 
the most violent animosities arise out of the small- 
est differences, either in this or in politics. 

In the first place, it would never do to establish 
our superiority over others by the acquisition of 
greater virtues, or by discarding our vices ; but it 
is charming to do this by merely repeating a dif- 
ferent formula of prayer, turning to the east in- 
stead of the west. He should fight boldly for such 
a distinction, who is persuaded it will furnish him 
with a passport to the other world, and entitle him 
to look down on the rest of his fellows as given over 
to perdition. Secondly, we often hate those most 
with whom we have only a slight shade of differ- 



OX PARTY SPIRIT. 65 

ence, whether in politics or religion ; because as 
the whole is a contest for precedence and in falli- 
bility, we find it more difficult to draw the line of 
distinction where so many points are conceded, 
and are staggered in our conviction by the argu- 
ments of those whom we cannot despise as totally 
and incorrigibly in the wrong. The high Church 
party in Queen Anne's time were disposed to sacri- 
fice the low Church and Dissenters to the Papists, 
because they were more galled by their arguments 
and disconcerted with their pretensions. In pri- 
vate life the reverse of the foregoing holds good : 
that is, trades and professions present a direct con- 
trast to sects and parties. A conformity in senti- 
ment strengthens our party and opinion ; but those 
who have a similarity of pursuit, are rivals in in- 
terest ; and hence the old maxim, that tivo of a 
trade can never agree. 
1830. 



ESSAY IV. 

ON THE FEELING OF IMMOETALITY 
IN YOUTH. 



No young man believes he shall ever die, It was 
a saying of my brother's, and a fine one. There 
is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us 
amends for everything. To be young is to be as 
one of the Immortals. One half of time indeed 
is spent — the other half remains in store for us 
with all its countless treasures, for there is no line 
drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and 
wishes. We make the coming age our own — 

" The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us." 

Death, old age, are words without a meaning, a 
dream, a fiction, with which we have nothing to do. 
Others may have undergone, or may still imdergo 
them — we " bear a charmed life," which laughs to 
scorn all such idle fancies. As, in setting out on 



ON THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY, ETC. 6? 

a delightful journey, we strain our eager sight 
forward, 

" Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail," 

and see no end to prospect after prospect, new 
objects presenting themselves as we advance, so 
in the outset of life we see no end to our desires 
nor to the opportunities of gratifying them. We 
have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to 
flag, and it seems that we can go on so for ever. 
We look round in a new world, full of life and 
motion, and ceaseless progress, and feel in our- 
selves all the vigour and spirit to keep pace with 
it, and do not foresee from any present signs how 
we shall be left behind in the race, decline into 
old age, and drop into the grave. It is the sim- 
plicity and, as it were, abstractedness of our feel- 
ings in youth that (so to speak) identifies us with 
nature and (our experience being weak and our 
passions strong) makes us fancy ourselves immor» 
tal like it. Our short-lived connexion with being, 
we fondly flatter ourselves, is an indissoluble and 
lasting union. As infants smile and sleep, we are 
rocked in the cradle of our desires, and hushed 
into fancied security by the roar of the universe 
around us — we quaff the cup of life with eager 
thirst without draining it, and joy and hope seem 
ever mantling to the brim — objects press around 



68 ON THE FEELING OF 

us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with 
the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that 
there is no room for the thoughts of death. We 
are too much dazzled by the gorgeousness and 
novelty of the bright waking dream about us to 
discern the dim shadow lingering for us in the 
distance. Nor would the hold that life has taken 
of us permit us to detach our thoughts that way 
even if we could. We are too much absorbed in 
present objects and pursuits. While the spirit of 
youth remains unimpaired, ere " the wine of life 
is drunk," we are like people intoxicated or in a 
fever, who are hurried away by the violence of 
their own sensations : it is only as present objects 
begin to pall upon the sense, as we have been dis- 
appointed in our favourite pursuits, cut off from 
our closest ties, that we by degrees become weaned 
from the world, that passion loosens its hold upon 
futurity, and that we begin to contemplate as in a 
glass darkly the possibility of parting with it for 
good. Till then, the example of others has no 
effect upon us. Casualties we avoid ; the slow 
approaches of age we play at hide and seek with. 
Like the foolish fat scullion in Sterne who hears 
that Master Bobby is dead, our only reflection is, 
" So am not I !" The idea of death, instead of 
staggering our confidence, only seems to strengthen 
and enhance our sense of the possession and our 



IMMOKTALITY IN YOUTH. 69 

enjoyment of life. Others may fall around us like 
leaves, or be mowed down by the scythe of Time 
like grass : these are but metaphors to the unre- 
flecting buoyant ears and overweening presumption 
of youth. It is not till we see the flowers of Love, 
Hope, and Joy withering around us, that we give 
up the flattering delusions that before led us on, 
and that the emptiness and dreariness of the pros- 
pect before us reconciles us hypothetically to the 
silence of the grave. 

Life is indeed a strange gift, and its privileges 
are most mysterious. No wonder when it is first 
granted to us, that our gratitude, our admiration, 
and our delight, should prevent us from reflecting 
on our own nothingness, or from thinking it will 
ever be recalled. Our first and strongest impres- 
sions are borrowed from the mighty scene that is 
opened to us, and we unconsciously transfer its 
durability as well as its splendour to ourselves. So 
newly found we cannot think of parting with it yet, 
or at least put off that consideration sine die. Like 
a rustic at a fair, we are full of amazement and 
rapture, and have no thought of going home, or 
that it will soon be night. We know our existence 
only by ourselves, and confound our knowledge 
with the objects of it. We and nature are there- 
fore one. Otherwise the illusion, the "feast of 
reason and the flow of soul/' to which we are in- 



TO m THE FEELING- OF 

vited, is a mockery and a cruel insult. We do not 
go from a play till the last act is ended, and the 
lights are about to be extinguished. But the fairy 
face of nature still shines on : shall we be called 
away before the curtain falls, or ere we have scarce 
had a glimpse of what is going on ? Like children, 
our step-mother nature holds us up to see the 
raree-show of the universe, and then, as if we were 
a burden to her to support, lets us fall down again. 
Yet what brave sublunary things does not this 
pageant present, like a ball or fete of the universe ! 
To see the golden sun, the azure sky, the out- 
stretched ocean ; to walk upon the green earth, and 
to be lord of a thousand creatures : to look down 
yawning precipices or over distant sunny vales ; to 
see the world spread out under one's feet on a 
map ; to bring the stars near ; to view the smallest 
insects through a microscope ; to read history, and 
consider the revolutions of empire and the succes- 
sions of generations ; to hear of the glory of Tyre, 
of Sidon, of Babylon, and of Susa, and to say .all 
these were before me and are now nothing ; to say 
I exist in such a point of time, and in such a point 
of space ; to be a spectator and a part of its ever- 
moving scene ; to witness the change of season, of 
spring and autumn, of winter and summer ; to feel 
hot and cold, pleasure and pain, beauty and defor- 
mity, right and wrong ; to be sensible to the acci- 



IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH. 71 

dents of nature ; to consider the mighty world of 
eye and ear; to listen to the stock-dove's notes 
amid the forest deep ; to journey over moor and 
mountain ; to hear the midnight sainted choir ; to 
visit lighted halls, or the cathedral's gloom, or sit 
in crowded theatres and see life itself mocked ; to 
study the works of art, and refine the sense of 
beauty to agony ; to worship fame, and to dream of 
immortality ; to look upon the Vatican, and to read 
Shakspeare ; to gather up the wisdom of the an- 
cients, and to pry into the future ; to listen to the 
trump of war, the shout of victory; to question 
history as to the movements of the human heart ; 
to seek for truth ; to plead the cause of humanity ; 
to overlook the world as if time and nature poured 
their treasures at our feet, — to he and to do all this, 
and then in a moment to he nothing — to have it 
all snatched from us as by a juggler's trick, or a 
phantasmagoria ! There is something in this transi- 
tion from all to nothing that shocks us and damps 
the enthusiasm of youth new flushed with hope 
and pleasure, and we cast the comfortless thought 
as far from us as we can. In the first enjoyment 
of the estate of life we discard the fear of debts 
and duns, and never think of the final payment 
of our great debt to nature. Art we know is long, 
life, we flatter ourselves, should be so too. We 
see no end of the difficulties and delays we have to 



72 ON THE FEELING OF 

encounter : perfection is slow of attainment, and 
we must have time to accomplish it in. The fame 
of the great names we look up to is immortal : and 
shall not we who contemplate it imbibe a portion 
of ethereal fire, the divine particula aura, which 
nothing can extinguish ? A wrinkle in Rembrandt 
or in nature takes whole days to resolve itself into 
its component parts, its softenings and its sharp- 
nesses ; we refine upon our perfections, and unfold 
the intricacies of nature. What a prospect for the 
future ! What a task have we not begun ! And 
shall we be arrested in the middle of it ? We do 
not count our time thus employed lost, or our 
pains thrown away ; we do not flag or grow tired, 
but gain new vigour at our endless task. Shall 
Time then grudge us to finish what we have begun, 
and have formed a compact with nature to do? 
Why not fill up the blank that is left us in this 
manner ? I have looked for hours at a Rembrandt 
without being conscious of the flight of time, but 
with ever new wonder and delight, have thought 
that not only my own but another existence I 
could pass in the same manner. This rarefied, 
refined existence seemed to have no end, nor stint, 
nor principle of decay in it. The print would 
remain long after I who looked on it had become 
the prey of worms. The thing seems in itself out 
of all reason : health, strength, appetite are op- 



IMMOKTALITY IN YOUTH. 73 

posed to the idea of death, and we are not ready 
to credit it till we have found our illusions 
vanished, and our hopes grown cold. Objects in 
youth from novelty, &c, are stamped upon the 
brain with such force and integrity that one thinks 
nothing can remove or obliterate them. They are 
riveted there, and appear to us as an element of 
our nature. It must be a mere violence that 
destroys them, not a natural decay. In the very 
strength of this persuasion we seem to enjoy an 
age by anticipation. We melt down years into a 
single moment of intense sympathy, and by anti- 
cipating the fruits defy the ravages of time. If 
then a single moment of our lives is worth years, 
shall we set any limits to its total value and extent? 
Again, does it not happen that so secure do we 
think ourselves of an indefinite period of existence, 
that at times when left to ourselves, and impatient 
of novelty, we feel annoyed at what seems to us 
the slow and creeping progress of time, and argue 
that if it always moves at this tedious snail's pace 
it will never come to an end ? How ready are 
we to sacrifice any space of time which separates us 
from a favourite object, little thinking that before 
long we shall find it move too fast. 

For my part I started in life with the French 
Eevolution, and I have lived, alas ! to see the end 
of it. But I did not foresee this result. My sun 



74 ON THE FEELING- OF 

arose with the first dawn of liberty, and I did 
not think how soon both must set. The new im- 
pulse to ardour given to men's minds imparted a 
congenial warmth and glow to mine ; we were 
strong to run a race together, and I little dreamed 
that long before mine was set, the sun of liberty 
would turn to blood, or set once more in the night 
of despotism. Since then, I confess, I have no 
longer felt myself young, for with that my hopes 
fell. 

I have since turned my thoughts to gathering 
up some of the fragments of my early recollections, 
and putting them into a form to which I might 
occasionally revert. The future was barred to my 
progress, and I turned for consolation and encou- 
ragement to the past. It is thus that while we 
find our personal and substantial identity vanish- 
ing from us, we strive to gain a reflected and 
vicarious one in our thoughts : we do not like to 
perish wholly, and wish to bequeath our names, at 
least, to posterity. As long as we can make our 
cherished thoughts and nearest interests live in 
the minds of others, we do not appear to have 
retired altogether from the stage. We still occupy 
the breasts of others, and exert an influence and 
power over them, and it is only our bodies that are 
reduced to dust and powder. Our favourite specu- 
lations still find encouragement, and we make as 



IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH. 75 

great a figure in the eye of the world or perhaps a 
greater than in our lifetime. The demands of our 
self-love are thus satisfied, and these are the most 
imperious and unremitting. Besides, if by our 
intellectual superiority we survive ourselves in this 
world, by our virtues and faith we may attain an 
interest in another, and a higher state of being, 
and may thus be recipients at the same time of 
men and of angels. 

" E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires." 

As we grow old, our sense of the value of time 
becomes vivid. Nothing else indeed seems of any 
consequence. We can never cease wondering that 
that which has ever been should cease to be. We 
find many things remain the same : why then 
should there be change in us ? This adds a con- 
vulsive grasp of whatever is, a sense of fallacious 
hollowness in all we see. Instead of the full, 
pulpy feeling of youth tasting existence and every 
object in it, all is flat and vapid, — a whited sepul- 
chre, fair without but full of ravening and all 
uncleanness within. The world is a witch that 
puts us off with false shows and appearances. 
The simplicity of youth, the confiding expectation, 
the boundless raptures, are gone : we only think 
of getting out of it as well as we can, and without 



76 ON THE FEELING OF 

any great mischance or annoyance. The flush of 
illusion, even the complacent retrospect of past 
joys and hopes, is over : if we can slip out of life 
"without indignity, can escape with little hodily 
infirmity, and frame our minds to the calm and 
respectable composure of still-life before we return 
to physical nothingness, it is as much as we can 
expect. We do not die wholly at our deaths : 
we have mouldered away gradually long before. 
Faculty after faculty, interest after interest, attach- 
ment after attachment disappear : we are torn from 
ourselves while living, year after year sees us no 
longer the same, and death only consigns the last 
fragment of what we were to the grave. That we 
should wear out by slow stages, and dwindle at last 
into nothing, is not wonderful, when even in our 
prime our strongest impressions leave little trace 
but for the moment, and we are the creatures of 
petty circumstance. How little effect is made on 
us in our best days by the books we have read, the 
scenes we have witnessed, the sensations we have 
gone through ! Think only of the feelings we 
experience in reading a fine romance (one of Sir 
Walters, for instance); what beauty, what sublim- 
ity, what interest, what heart-rending emotions I 
You would suppose the feelings you then experi- 
enced would last for ever, or subdue the mind to 
their own harmony and tone : while we are reading 



IMMOETALITY IN YOUTH. 77 

it seems as if nothing could ever put us out of our 
way, or trouble us : — the first splash of mud that 
we get on entering the street, the first twopence 
we are cheated out of, the feeling vanishes clean 
out of our minds, and we become the prey of petty 
and annoying circumstance. The mind soars to 
the lofty : it is at home in the grovelling, the dis- 
agreeable, and the little. And yet we wonder 
that age should be feeble and querulous, — that the 
freshness of youth should fade away. Both worlds 
would hardly satisfy the extravagance of our desires 
and of our presumption. 



ESSAY V. 
ON PUBLIC OPINION. 



" Scared at the sound itself has made." 

Once asking a friend why he did not bring for- 
ward an explanation of a circumstance, in which 
his conduct had been called in question, he said, 
" His friends were satisfied on the subject, and he 
cared very little about the opinion of the world." 
I made answer that I did not consider this a good 
ground to rest his defence upon, for that a man's 
friends seldom thought better of him than the 
world did. I see no reason to alter this opinion. 
Our friends, indeed, are more apt than a mere 
stranger to join in with, or be silent under any im- 
putation thrown out against us, because they are 
apprehensive they may be indirectly implicated in 
it, and they are bound to betray us to save their 
own credit. To judge of our jealousy, our sensi- 
bility, our high notions of responsibility on this 
score, only consider if a single individual lets fall 



ON PUBLIC OPINION. 79 

a solitary remark implying a doubt of the wife, the 
sense, the courage of a friend, — how it staggers 
us — how it makes us shake with fear — how it 
makes us call up all our eloquence and 
airs of self -consequence in Iris defence, lest our 
partiality should be supposed to have blinded our 
perceptions, and we should be regarded as the 
dupes of a mistaken admiration. We already be- 
gin to meditate an escape from a losing cause, and 
try to find out some other fault in the character 
under discussion, to show that we are not behind- 
hand (if the truth must be spoken) in sagacity, and 
a sense of the ridiculous. If, then, this is the case 
with the first flaw, the first doubt, the first speck 
that dims the sun of friendship, so that we are 
ready to turn our backs on our sworn attachments 
and well-known professions the instant we have 
not all the world with us, what must it be when 
we have all the world against us ; when our friend, 
instead of a single stain, is covered with mud from 
head to foot ; how shall we expect our feeble voices 
not to be drowned in the general clamour ? how 
shall we dare to oppose our partial and mis-timed 
suffrages to the just indignation of the public ? Or 
if it should not amount to this, how shall we an- 
swer the silence and contempt with which his 
name is received? How shall we animate the 
great mass of indifference or distrust with our 



80 ON PUBLIC OPINION. 

private enthusiasm? how defeat the involuntary 
smile, or the suppressed sneer, with the burst of 
generous feeling and the glow of honest conviction ? 
It is a thing not to be thought of, unless we would 
enter into a crusade against prejudice and malig- 
nity, devote ourselves as martyrs to friendship, 
raise a controversy in every company we go into, 
quarrel with every person we meet, and after mak- 
ing ourselves and every one else uncomfortable, 
leave off, not by clearing our friend's reputation, 
but by involving our own pretensions to decency 
and common sense. People will not fail to observe 
that a man may have his reasons for his faults or 
vices ; but that for another to volunteer a defence 
of them, is without excuse. It is, in fact, an at- 
tempt to deprive them of the great and only benefit 
they derive from the supposed errors of their neigh- 
bours and contemporaries — the pleasure of back- 
biting and railing at them, which they call seeing 
justice done. It is not a single breath of rumour 
or opinion ; but the whole atmosphere is infected 
with a sort of aguish taint of anger and suspicion, 
that relaxes the nerves of fidelity, and makes our 
most sanguine resolutions sicken and turn pale ; 
and he who is proof against it, must either be 
armed with a love of truth, or a contempt for man- 
kind, which places him out of the reach of ordinary 
rules and calculations. For myself, I do not shrink 



ON PUBLIC OPINION. 81 

from defending a cause or a friend under a cloud ; 
though in neither case will cheap or common efforts 
suffice. But, in the first, you merely stand up 
for your own judgment and principles against 
fashion and prejudice, and thus assume a sort of 
manly and heroic attitude of defiance : in the last 
(which makes it a matter of greater nicety and 
nervous sensibility), you sneak behind another to 
throw your gauntlet at the whole world, and it re- 
quires a double stock of stoical firmness not to be 
laughed out of your boasted zeal and independence 
as a romantic and amiable weakness.* 

There is nothing in which all the world agree 
but in running down some obnoxious individual. 
It may be supposed that this is not for nothing, and 
that they have good reasons for what they do. On 
the contrary, I will undertake to say, that so far 
from there being invariably just grounds for such 
an universal outcry, the universality of the outcry 
is often the only ground of the opinion ; and that 
it is purposely raised upon this principle, that all 



* The only friends whom we defend with zeal and obsti- 
nacy are our relations. They seem part of ourselves. For 
our other friends we are only answerable, so long as we 
countenance them ; and therefore cut the connection as 
soon as possible. But who ever willingly gave up the good 
dispositions of a child, or the honour of a parent ] 



82 ON PUBLIC OPINION. 

other proof or evidence against the person meant 
to be run down is wanting, Nay, farther, it may 
happen, that while the clamour is at the loudest ; 
while you hear it from all quarters ; while it blows 
a perfect hurricane ; while " the world rings with 
the vain stir " — not one of those who are most 
eager in hearing and echoing knows what it is 
about, or is not fully persuaded that the charge is 
equally false, malicious, and absurd. It is like the 
wind, that " no man knoweth whence it cometh, or 
whither it goeth." It is vox et praterea nihil. 
What then is it that gives it its confident circula- 
tion and its irresistible force ? It is the loudness 
of the organ with which it is pronounced, the sten- 
torian lungs of the multitude ; the number of voices 
that take it up and repeat it, because others have 
done so ; the rapid flight and the impalpable 
nature of common fame, that makes it a desperate 
undertaking for any individual to inquire into or 
arrest the mischief that, in the deafening buzz or 
loosened roar of laughter or indignation, renders it 
impossible for the still small voice of reason to be 
heard, and leaves no other course to honesty or 
prudence than to fall flat on the face before it as 
before the pestilential blast of the desert, and wait 
till it has passed over. Thus every one joins in 
asserting, propagating, and in outwardly approving 
what every one, in his private and unbiassed judg- 



ON PUBLIC OPINION. 83 

ment, believes and knows to be scandalous and 
untrue. For every one in such circumstances 
keeps his own opinion to himself, and only attends 
to or acts upon that which he conceives to be the 
opinion of every one but himself. So that public 
opinion is not seldom a farce, equal to any acted 
upon the stage. Not only is it spurious and hol- 
low in the way that Mr Locke points out, by one 
man's taking up at second hand the opinion of 
another, but worse than this, one man takes up 
what he believes another will think, and which the 
latter professes only because he believes it held by 
the first ! All therefore that is necessary, to con- 
trol public opinion, is, to gain possession of some 
organ loud and lofty enough to make yourself heard, 
that has power and interest on its side ; and then, 
no sooner do you blow a blast in this trump of ill- 
fame, like the horn hung up on an old castle-wall, 
than you are answered, echoed, and accredited on 
all sides : the gates are thrown open to receive you, 
and you are admitted into the very heart of the 
fortress of public opinion, and can assail from the 
ramparts with every engine of abuse, and with 
privileged impunity, all those who may come for- 
ward to vindicate the truth, or to rescue their good 
name from the unprincipled keeping of authority, 
servility, sophistry, and venal falsehood ! The only 
thing wanted is to give an alarm — to excite a panic 



84 ON PUBLIC OPINION. 

in the public mind of being left in the lurch, and 
the rabble (whether in the ranks of literature or 
war) will throw away their arms, and surrender at 
discretion to any bully or impostor who, for a con- 
sideration^ shall choose to try the experiment upon 
them! 

What I have here described is the effect even 
upon the candid and well-disposed : — what must it 
be to the malicious and idle, who are eager to be- 
lieve all the ill they can hear of every one ; or to 
the prejudiced and interested, who are determined 
to credit all the ill they hear against those who are 
not of their own side ? To these last it is only 
requisite to be understood that the butt of ridicule 
or slander is of an opposite party, and they pre- 
sently give you carte blanche to say what you please 
of him. Do they know that it is true ? No; but 
they believe what all the world says, till they have 
evidence to the contrary. Do you prove that it is 
false ? They dare say, that if not that, something 
worse remains behind ; and they retain the same 
opinion as before, for the honour of their party. 
They hire some one to pelt you with mud, and then 
affect to avoid you in the street as a dirty fellow. 
They are told that you have a hump on your back, 
and then wonder at your assurance or want of com- 
plaisance in walking into a room w r here they are, 
without it. Instead of apologising for the mistake, 



ON PUBLIC OPINION. 85 

and, from finding one aspersion false, doubting all 
the rest, they are only the more confirmed in the 
remainder from being deprived of one handle 
against you, and resent their disappointment, in- 
stead of beiog ashamed of their credulity. People 
talk of the bigotry of the Catholics, and treat with 
contempt the absurd claim of the Popes to infalli- 
bility — I think with little right to do so. Walk 
into a church in Paris, you are struck with a num- 
ber of idle forms and ceremonies, the chanting of 
the service in Latin, the shifting of the surplices, 
the sprinkling of holy water, the painted windows 
" casting a dim religious light," the wax-tapers, the 
pealing organ : the common people seem attentive 
and devout, and to put entire faith in all this— 
Why ? Because they imagine others to do so ; 
they see and hear certain signs and supposed evi- 
dences of it, and it amuses and fills up the void of 
the mind, the love of the mysterious and wonderful, 
to lend their assent to it. They have assuredly, 
in general, no better reason — all our Protestant 
divines will tell you so. Well, step out of the 
church of St Eoche, and drop into an English 
reading-room hard by : what are you the better ? 
You see a dozen or a score of your countrymen, 
with their faces fixed, and their eyes glued to a 
newspaper, a magazine, a review — reading, swal- 
lowing, profoundly ruminating on the He, the cant, 



86 ON PUBLIC OPINION. 

the sophism of the day I Why ? It saves them 
the trouble of thinking ; it gratifies their ill humour, 
and keeps off ennui ! Does a gleam of doubt, 
an air of ridicule, or a glance of impatience pass 
across their features at the shallow and monstrous 
things they find ? No, it is all passive faith and 
dull security ; they cannot take their eyes from the 
page, they cannot live without it. They believe in 
their adopted oracle (you see it in their faces) as 
implicitly as in Sir John Barleycorn, as in a sir- 
loin of beef, as in quarter-day — as they hope to 
receive then rents, or to see Old England again ! 
Are not the Popes, the Fathers, the Councils, as 
good as their oracles and champions ? They know 
the paper before them to be a hoax, but do they 
believe in the ribaldry, the calumny, the less on 
that account ? They believe the more in it, because 
it is got up solely and expressly to serve a cause 
that needs such support — and they swear by what- 
ever is devoted to this object. 

The greater the profligacy, the effrontery, the 
servility, the greater the faith. Strange ! That 
the British public, whether at home or abroad, 
should shake their heads at the Lady of Loretto, 
and repose deliciously on Mr Theodore Hook. It 
may well be thought that the enlightened part of the 
British public, persons of family and fortunes, who 
have had a college education, and received the 



ON PUBLIC OPINION. 87 

benefit of foreign travel, see through the quackery, 
which they encourage for a political purpose, with- 
out being themselves the dupes of it. This scarcely 
mends the matter. Suppose an individual, of 
whom it has been repeatedly asserted that he has 
warts on his nose, were to enter the reading-room 
aforesaid, is there a single red-faced country squire 
who would not be surprised at not finding this 
story true, would not persuade himself five minutes 
after that he could not have seen correctly, or that 
some art had been used to conceal the defects, or 
would be led to doubt, from this instance, the 
general candour and veracity of his oracle ? He 
would disbelieve his own senses rather. Seeing is 
believing, it is said : lying is believing, I say. We 
do not even see with our own eyes, but must " wink 
and shut our apprehension up," that we may be 
able to agree to the report of others, as a piece of 
good manners and a point of established etiquette. 
Besides, the supposed deformity answered his 
wishes ; the abuse fed fat the ancient grudge he 
owed some presumptuous scribbler, for not agree- 
ing in a number of points with his betters ; it gave 
him a personal advantage over a man he did not 
like — and who will give up w r hat tends to strengthen 
his aversion for another ? To Tory prejudice, dire 
as it is — to English imagination, morbid as it is, a 
nickname, a ludicrous epithet, a malignant false- 



88 ON PUBLIC OPINION. 

hood, when it has been once propagated and taken 
to the bosom as a welcome consolation, becomes a 
precious- property, a vested right, and people would 
as soon give up a sinecure, or a share in a close 
borough, as this sort of plenary indulgence to speak 
and think with contempt of those who would 
abolish the one, or throw open the other. Party- 
spirit is the best reason in the world for personal 
antipathy and vulgar abuse. 

" But, do you not think, Sir," (some dialectician 
may ask,) " that belief is involuntary, and that we 
judge in all cases according to the precise degree 
of evidence and the positive facts before us ?" 

Xo, Sir. 

" You believe, then, in the doctrine of philoso- 
phical free-will ? " 

Indeed, Sir, I do not. 

" How then, Sir, am I to understand so unac- 
countable a diversity of opinion from the most ap- 
proved writers on the philosophy of the human 
mind?" 

May I ask, my dear Sir, did you ever read Mr 
Wordsworth's poem of ■ Michael ?' 

" I cannot charge my memory with the fact." 

Well, Sir, this Michael is an old shepherd, who 
has a son who goes to sea. and who turns out a 
great reprobate, by all the accounts received of him. 
Before he went, however, the father took the boy 



ON PUBLIC OPINION. 89 

with him into a mountain-glen, and made hini lay 
the first stone of a sheep-fold, which was to he a 
covenant and a rememhrance between them if 
anything ill happened. For years after, the old 
man used to go and work at the sheep-fold — 

" Among the rocks 
He went, and still look'd up upon the sun, 
And listen'd to the wind" — 

and sat by the half-finished work, expecting the 
lad's return, or hoping to hear some better tidings 
of him. Was this hope founded on reason — or 
was it not owing to the strength of affection which, 
in spite of everything, could not relinquish its hold 
of a favourite object, indeed the only one that 
bound it to existence ? 

Not being able to make my dialectician answer 
kindly to interrogatories, I must get on without 
him. In matters of absolute demonstration and 
speculative indifferences, I grant, that belief is 
involuntary, and the proof not to be resisted ; but 
then, in such matters, there is no difference of 
opinion, or the difference is adjusted amicably, 
and rationally. Hobbes is of opinion, that if their 
passions or interests could be implicated in the 
question, men would deny stoutly that the three 
angles of a right-angled triangle are equal to two 



90 ON PUBLIC OPINION. 

right ones : and the disputes in religion look some- 
thing like it. I only contend, however, that in all 
cases not of this peremptory and determinate cast, 
and where disputes commonly arise, inclination, 
hahit, and example have a powerful share hi 
throwing in the casting- weight to our opinions ; 
and that he who is only tolerably free from these, 
and not their regular dupe or slave, is indeed " a 
man of ten thousand." Take, for instance, the 
example of a Catholic clergyman in a Popish 
country : it will generally be found that he lives 
and dies in the faith in which he was brought up, 
as the Protestant clergyman does in his — shall we 
say that the necessity of gaining a livelihood, or 
the prospect of preferment, that the early bias 
given to his mind by education and study, the 
pride of victory, the shame of defeat, the example 
and encouragement of all about him, the respect 
and love of his flock, the flattering notice of the 
great, have no effect in giving consistency to his 
opinions and carrying them through to the last ? 
Yet, who will suppose that in either case this ap- 
parent uniformity is mere hypocrisy, or that the 
intellects of the two classes of divines are naturally 
adapted to the arguments in favour of the two 
religions they have occasion to profess ? No : but 
the understanding takes a tincture from outward 



ON PUBLIC OPINION. 91 

impulses and circumstances, and is led to dwell on 
those suggestions which favour, and to blind itself 
to the objections which impugn, the side to winch 
it previously and morally inclines. Again, even 
in those who oppose established opinions, and form 
the little, firm, formidable phalanx of dissent, have 
not early instruction, spiritual pride, the love of 
contradiction, a resistance to usurped authority, as 
much to do with keeping up the war of sects and 
schisms as the abstract love of truth or conviction 
of the understanding ? Does not persecution fan 
the flame in such fiery tempers, and does it not 
expire, or grow lukewarm, with indulgence and 
neglect ? I have a sneaking kindness for a Popish 
priest in this country ; and to a Catholic peer I 
would willingly bow in passing. What are national 
antipathies, individual attachments, but so many 
expressions of the moral principle in forming our 
opinions ? All our opinions become grounds on 
which we act, and build our expectations of good 
or ill ; and this good or ill mixed up with them is 
soon changed into the ruling principle which modi- 
fies or violently supersedes the original cool deter- 
mination of the reason and senses. The will, 
when it once gets a footing, turns the sober judg- 
ment out of doors. If we form an attachment to 
any one, are we not slow in giving it up ? Or, if 
our suspicions are once excited, are we not equally 



92 ON PUBLIC OPINION. 

rash and violent in believing the worst ? Othello 
characterises himself as one 

'•' Who loved not wisely, but too well; 
As one not easily wrought — but, being jealous, 
Perplex'd in the extreme." 

And this answers to the movements and irregulari- 
ties of passion and opinion which take place in 
human nature. If we wish a thing, we are disposed 
to believe it ; if we have been accustomed to believe 
it, we are the more obstinate hi defending it on 
that account : if all the world differ from us in any 
question of moment, we are ashamed to own it ; 
or are hurried by peevishness and irritation into 
extravagance and paradox. The weight of example 
presses upon us (whether we feel it or not) like 
the law of gravitation. He who sustains his 
opinion by the strength of conviction and evidence 
alone, unmoved by ridicule, neglect, obloquy, or 
privation, shows no less resolution than the Hindoo 
who makes and keeps a vow to hold his right arm 
in the air till it grows rigid and callous. 

To have all the world against us is trying to a 
man's temper and philosophy. It unhinges even 
our opinion of our ow T n motives and intentions. 
It is like striking the actual world from under our 
feet: the void that is left, the death-like pause, the 
chilling suspense, is fearful. The growth of an 



ON PUBLIC OPINION. 93 

opinion is like the growth of a limb ; it receives its 
actual support and nourishment from the general 
body of the opinions, feelings, and practice of the 
world ; without that, it soon withers, festers, and 
becomes useless. To what purpose write a good 
book, if it is sure to be pronounced a bad one, even 
before it is read ? If our thoughts are to be blown 
stifling back upon ourselves, why utter them at all ? 
It is only exposing what we love most to contumely 
and insult, and thus depriving ourselves of our own 
relish and satisfaction in them. Language is only 
made to communicate our sentiments, and if we 
can find no one to receive them, we are reduced to 
the silence of dumbness, we live but in the soli- 
tude of a dungeon. If we do not vindicate our 
opinions, we seem poor creatures who have no right 
to them ; if we speak out, we are involved in con- 
tinual brawls and controversy. If we contemn 
what others admire, we make ourselves odious : if 
we admire what they despise, we are equally ridicu- 
lous. We have not the applause of the world nor 
the support of a party ; we can neither enjoy the 
freedom of social intercourse, nor the calm of 
privacy. With our respect for others, we lose con- 
fidence in ourselves : everything seems to be a 
subject of litigation — to want proof or confirma- 
tion ; we doubt, by degrees, whether we stand on 
our head or our heels — whether we know our right 



94 ON PUBLIC OPINION. 

hand from our left. If I am assured that I never 
wrote a sentence of common English in my life, 
how can I know that this is not the case ? If I am 
told at one time that my writings are as heavy as 
lead, and at another, that they are more light and 
flimsy than the gossamer — what resource have I 
but to choose between the two ? I could say, if 
this were the place, what those writings are. — 
" Make it the place, and never stand upon 
punctilio ! " 

They are not, then, so properly the works of an 
author by profession, as the thoughts of a meta- 
physician expressed by a painter. They are subtle 
and difficult problems translated into hieroglyphics. 
I thought for several years on the hardest subjects, 
on Fate, Free Will, Foreknowledge absolute, with- 
out ever making use of words or images at all, and 
that has made them come in such throngs and con- 
fused heaps when I burst from that void of abstrac- 
tion. In proportion to the tenuity to which my 
ideas had been drawn, and my abstinence from or- 
nament and sensible objects, was the tenaciousness 
with which actual circumstances and picturesque 
imagery laid hold of my mind, when I turned my 
attention to them, or had to look round for illustra- 
tions. Till I began to paint, or till I became ac- 
quainted with the author of ' The Ancient Mariner,' 
I could neither write nor speak. He encouraged 



ON PUBLIC OPTKION. 95 

me to write a book, which I did according to the 
original bent of my mind, making it as dry and 
meagre as I could, so that it fell still-born from the 
press, and none of those who abuse me for a shallow 
catch-penny writer have so much as heard of it. 
Yet, let me say, that work contains an important 
metaphysical discovery, supported by a continuous 
and severe train of reasoning, nearly as subtle and 
original as anything in Hume or Berkeley. I am 
not accustomed to speak of myself in this manner, 
but impudence may provoke modesty to justify 
itself. Finding this method did not answer, I 
despaired for a time : but some trifle I wrote in 
the ' Morning Chronicle* meeting the approbation 
of the editor and the town, I resolved to turn over 
a new leaf — to take the public at its word, to 
muster all the tropes and figures I could lay hands 
on, and, though I am a plain man, never to appear 
abroad but in an embroidered dress. Still, old 
habits will prevail ; and I hardly ever set about a 
paragraph or a criticism, but there was an under- 
current of thought, or some generic distinction on 
which the whole turned. Having got my clue, I 
had no difficulty in stringing pearls upon it ; and 
the more recondite the point, the more I laboured 
to bring it out and set it off by a variety of orna- 
ments and allusions. This puzzled the scribes 
whose business it was to crush me. They could 



96 ON PUBLIC OPINION. 

not see the meaning : they would not see the co- 
louring, for it hint their eyes. One cried out, it 
was dull ; another, that it was too fine by half : my 
friends took up this last alternative as the most 
favourable ; and since then it has been agreed that 
I am a florid writer, somewhat flighty and para- 
doxical. Yet, when I wished to unburthen my 
mind in the ' Edinburgh* by an article on English 
metaphysics, the editor who echoes this florid 
charge, said he preferred what I wrote for effect, and 
was afraid of its being thought heavy ! I have ac- 
counted for the flowers ; — the paradoxes may be 
accounted for in the same way. All abstract rea- 
soning is in extremes, or only takes up one view of 
a question, or what is called the principle of the 
thing ; and if you want to give this popularity and 
effect, you are in danger of running into extrava- 
gance and hyperbole. I have had to bring out 
some obscure distinction, or to combat some strong 
prejudice, and in doing this with all my might, 
may have often overshot the mark. It was easy 
to correct the excess of truth afterwards. I have 
been accused of inconsistency, for writing an essay, 
for instance, on the Advantages of Pedantry, and 
another, on the Ignorance of the Learned, as if 
ignorance had not its comforts as well as knowledge. 
The personalities I have fallen into have never 
been gratuitous. If I have sacrificed my friends, 



ON PUBLIC OPINION. 97 

it has always been to a theory. I have been found 
fault with for repeating myself, and for a narrow 
range of ideas. To a w^ant of general reading, I plead 
guilty, and am sorry for it ; but perhaps if I had 
read more, I might have thought less. As to my 
barrenness of invention, I have at least glanced 
over a number of subjects — painting, poetry, prose, 
plays, politics, parliamentary speakers, metaphy- 
sical lore, books, men, and things. There is some 
point, some fancy, some feeling, some taste, shown 
in treating of these. Which of my conclusions has 
been reversed ? Is it what I said ten years ago of 
the Bourbons which raised the war-whoop against 
me ? Surely all the world are of that opinion now. 
I have, then, given proofs of some talent, and of 
more honesty : if there is haste or want of method, 
there is no common-place, nor a line that licks the 
dust ; and if I do not appear to more advantage, I 
at least appear such as I am If the Editor of the 
'Atlas' will do me the favour to look over my ' Essay- 
on the Principles of Human Action,' will dip into 
any essay I ever wrote, and will take a sponge and 
clear the dust from the face of my ' Old Woman,' I 
hope he will, upon second thoughts, acquit me of 
an absolute dearth of resources and want of versa- 
tility in the direction of my studies. 
1828. 



E 



ESSAY VI. 
ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 



" Ha ! here's three of us are sophisticated." — Lear. 

" If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes !" 
said the Macedonian hero : and the cyme might 
have retorted the compliment upon the prince bj 
saying, that, " were he not Diogenes, he would be 
Alexander!" This is the universal exception, the 
invariable reservation that our self-love makes, the 
utmost point at which our admiration or envy ever 
arrives — to wish, if we were not ourselves, to be 
some other individual. No one ever wishes to be 
another, instead of himself. We may feel a desire 
to change places with others — to have one man's 
fortune — another's health or strength — his wit or 
learning, or accomplishments of various kinds — 

" Washing to "be like one more rich in hope, 
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, 
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope :" 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 99 

but we would still be ourselves, to possess and enjoy 
all these, or we would not give a doit for them. 
But, on this supposition, what in truth should we 
be the better for them ? It is not we, but another, 
that would reap the benefit ; and what do w T e care 
about that other ? In that case, the present owner 
might as well continue to enjoy them. We should 
not be gainers by the change. If the meanest 
beggar who crouches at a palace-gate, and looks up 
with awe and suppliant fear to the proud inmate as 
he passes, could be put in possession of all the 
fineiy, the pomp, the luxury, and wealth that he 
sees and envies, on the sole condition of getting 
rid, together with his rags and misery, of all recol- 
lection that there ever was such a wretch as him- 
self, he would reject the proffered boon w r ith scorn. 
He might be glad to change situations; but he 
would insist on keeping his own thoughts, to com- 
pare notes, and point the transition by the force of 
contrast. He would not, on any account, forego 
his self- congratulation on the unexpected accession 
of good fortune, and his escape from past suffering. 
All that excites his cupidity, his envy, his repining 
or despair, is the alternative of some great good to 
himself; and if, in order to attain that object, he 
is to part with his own existence to take that of 
another, he can feel no farther interest in it. This 
is the language both of passion and reason. 



100 ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

Here lies "the rub that makes calamity of so 
long life :" for it is not barely the apprehension of 
the ills that " in that sleep of death may come," 
but also our ignorance and indifference to the pro- 
mised good, that produces our repugnance and 
backwardness to quit the present scene. !Sro man, 
if he had his choice, would be the angel Gabriel 
to-morrow ! What is the angel Gabriel to him 
but a splendid vision ? He might as well have au 
ambition to be turned into a bright cloud, or a par- 
ticular star. The interpretation of which is, he 
can have no sympathy with the angel Gabriel. 
Before he can be transformed into so bright and 
ethereal an essence, he must necessarily " put off 
this mortal coil" — be divested of all his old habits, 
passions, thoughts, and feelings — to be endowed 
with other attributes, lofty and beatific, of which he 
has no notion ; and, therefore, he would rather re- 
main a little longer in this mansion of clay, which, 
with all its flaws, inconveniences, and perplexities, 
contains all that he has any real knowledge of, 
or any affection for. When, indeed, he is about 
to quit it in spite of himself, and has no other 
chance left to escape the darkness of the tomb, he 
may then have no objection (making a virtue of 
necessity) to put on angel's wings, to have radiant 
locks, to wear a wreath of amaranth, and thus to 
masquerade it in the skies. 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 101 

It is an instance of the truthful beauty of the 
ancient mythology, that the various transmutations 
it recounts are never voluntary, or of favourable 
omen, but are interposed as a timely release to 
those who, driven on by fate, and urged to the last 
extremity of fear or anguish, are turned into a 
flower, a plant, an animal, a star, a precious stone, 
or into some object that may inspire pity or mitigate 
our regret for their misfortunes. Narcissus was 
transformed into a flower ; Daphne into a laurel ; 
Arethusa into a fountain (by the favour of the 
gods) — but not till no other remedy was left for 
their despair. It is a sort of smiling cheat upon 
death, and graceful compromise with annihilation. 
It is better to exist by proxy, in some softened type 
and soothing allegory, than not at all— to breathe 
in a flower or shine in a constellation, than to be 
utterly forgot ; but no one would change his natural 
condition (if he could help it) for that of a bird, an 
insect, a beast, or a fish, however delightful their 
mode of existence, or however enviable he might 
deem their lot compared to his own. Their 
thoughts are not our thoughts — their happiness is 
not our happiness ; nor can we enter into it, except 
with a passing smile of approbation, or as a refine- 
ment of fancy. As the poet sings : — 

" What more felicity can fall to creature 
Than to enjoy delight with liberty, 



10*2 ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

And to be lord of all the works of nature ? 

To reign in the air from earth to highest sky ; 
To feed on flowers and weeds of glorious feature ; 

To taste whatever thing doth please the eye? — 
"Who rests not pleased with such happiness, 
Well worthy he to taste of wretchedness ! " 

This is gorgeous description and fine declamation : 
jet who would be found to act upon it, even in the 
forming of a wish ; or would not rather be the 
thrall of wretchedness, than launch out (by the aid 
of some magic spell) into all the delights of such a 
butterfly state of existence ? Tbe French (if any 
people can) may be said to enjoy this airy, heed- 
less gaiety and unalloyed exuberance of satisfaction : 
yet what Englishman would deliberately change 
with them? We would sooner be miserable after 
our own fashion than happy after their' s. It is 
not happiness, then, in the abstract, wdrich we seeh y 
that can be addressed as 

" That something still that prompts th' eternal sigh, 
For which we wish to live or dare to die," — 

but a happiness suited to our tastes and faculties — 
that has become a part of ourselves, by habit and 
enjoyment — that is endeared to us by a thousand 
recollections, privations, and sufferings. No one, 
then, would willingly change his country or his 
kind for the most plausible pretences held out to 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 103 

Mm. The most humiliating punishment inflicted 
in ancient fable is the change of sex : not that it 
was any degradation in itself — but that it must 
occasion a total derangement of the moral economy 
and confusion of the sense of personal propriety. 
The tiling is said to have happened au sens con- 
traire, in our time. The story is to be met with 

in "very choice Italiau;" and Lord D tells it 

in very plain English ! 

We may often find ourselves envying the posses- 
sions of others, and sometimes inadvertently indulg- 
ing a wish to change places with them altogether ; 
but our self-love soon discovers some excuse to be 
off the bargain we were ready to strike, and re- 
tracts " vows made in haste, as violent and void." 
We might make up our minds to the alteration in 
every other particular ; but, when it comes to the 
point, there is sure to be some trait or feature of 
character in the object of our admiration to which we 
cannot reconcile ourselves — some favourite quality 
or darling foible of our own, with which we can by 
no means resolve to part. The more enviable the 
situation of another, the more entirely to our taste, 
the more reluctant we are to leave any part of our- 
selves behind that would be so fully capable of 
appreciating all the exquisiteness of its new situa- 
tion, or not to enter into the possession of such an 
imaginaiy reversion of good fortune with all our 



104 ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

previous inclinations and sentiments. The out- 
ward circumstances were fine : they only wanted a 
soul to enjoy them, and that soul is our's (as the 
costly ring wants the peerless jewel to perfect and 
set it off). The humble prayer and petition to 
sneak into visionary felicity by personal adoption, 
or the surrender of our own personal pretensions, 
always ends in a daring project of usurpation, and 
a determination to expel the actual proprietor, and 
supply his place so much more worthily with our 
own identity — not bating a single jot of it. Thus, 
in passing through a fine collection of pictures, who 
lias not envied the privilege of visiting it every day, 
and wished to be the owner ? But the rising sigh 
is soon checked, and "the native hue of emulation 
is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," when 
we come to ask ourselves not merely whether the 
owner has any taste at all for these splendid works, 
and does not look upon them as so much expensive 
furniture, like his chairs and tables — but whether 
he has the same precise (and only true) taste that 
we have — whether he has the very same favourites 
that we have — whether he may not be so blind as 
to prefer a Vandyke to a Titian, a Euysdael to a 
Claude ; — nay, whether he may not have other 
pursuits and avocations that draw off his attention 
from the sole objects of our idolatry, and which 
seem to us mere impertinences and waste of time ? 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 105 

In that case, we at once lose all patience, and ex- 
claim indignantly, " Give ns back our taste, and 
keep your pictures ! " It is not we who should 
envy them the possession of the treasure, but they 
who should envy us the true and exclusive enjoy- 
ment of it. A similar train of feeling seems to 
have dictated Warton's spirited ' Sonnet on visiting 
Wilton-House' : — 

" From Pembroke's princely dome, where mimic art 
Decks with a magic hand the dazzling bowers, 
Its living hues where the warm pencil pours, 
And breathing forms from the rude marble start, 
How to life's humbler scene can I depart 1 
My breast all glowing from those gorgeous towers, 
In my low cell how cheat the sullen hours 1 
Vain the complaint I For fancy can impart 
(To fate superior and to fortune's power) 
Whate'er adorns the stately-storied hall : 
She, mid the dungeon's solitary gloom, 
Can dress the Graces in their attic-pall ; 
Bid the green landskip's vernal beauty bloom ; 
And in bright trophies clothe the twilight wall." 

One sometimes passes by a gentleman's park, an 
old family-seat, with its moss-grown ruinous paling, 
its " glades mild-opening to the genial day," or 
embrowned with forest-trees. Here one w r ould be 
glad to spend one's life, " shut up in measureless 
content," and to grow old beneath ancestral oaks» 



106 ON PEKSONAL IDENTITY. 

instead of gaining a precarious, irksome, and de- 
spised livelihood, by indulging romantic sentiments, 
and writing disjointed descriptions of them. The 
thought has scarcely risen to the lips, when we 
learn that the owner of so blissful a seclusion is a 
thorough-bred fox-hunter, a preserver of the game, 
a brawling electioneerer, a Tory member of parlia- 
ment, a "no-Popery " man ! — "I'd sooner be a dog, 
and bay the moon ! " Who would be Sir Thomas 
Lethbridge for his title and estate ? asks one man. 
But would not almost any one wish to be'Sir Fran- 
cis Burdett, the man of the people, the idol of the 
electors of Westminster ? says another. I can only 
answer for myself. Respectable and honest as he 
is, there is something in his white boots, and white 
breeches, and white coat, and white hair, and white 
hat, and red face, that I cannot, by any effort 
of candour, confound my personal identity with ! 
If Mr can prevail on Sir Francis to ex- 
change, let him do so by all means. Perhaps they 
might contrive to club a soul between them ! 
Could I have had my will, I should have been born 
a lord : but one would not be a booby lord neither. 
I am haunted by an odd fancy of driving down the 
Great North Road in a chaise and four, about fifty 
years ago, and coming to the inn at Ferry-bridge, 
with out-riders, white favours, and a coronet on, the 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 107 

panels ; and then, too, I choose my companion in the 
coach. Really there is a witchcraft in all this that 
makes it necessary to turn away from it, lest, in 
the conflict between imagination and impossibility, 
I should grow feverish and light-headed ! But, on 
the other hand, if one was a horn lord, should one 
have the same idea (that every one else has) of a 
peeress in her own right ? Is not distance, giddy 
elevation, mysterious awe, an impassable gulf, ne- 
cessary to form this idea in the mind, that fine 
ligament of " ethereal braid, sky- woven," that lets 
clown heaven upon earth, fair as enchantment, soft 
as Berenice's hair, bright and garlanded like Ari- 
adne's crown ; and is it not better to have had this 
idea all through life — to have caught but glimpses 
of it, to have known it but in a dream — than to 
have been born a lord ten times over, with twenty 
pampered menials at one's beck, and twenty de- 
scents to boast of ? It is the envy of certain privi- 
leges, the sharp privations we have undergone, the 
cutting neglect we have met with from the want of 
birth or title, that gives its zest to the distinction : 
the thing itself may be indifferent or contemptible 
enough. It is the becoming a lord thatia to be de- 
sired ; but he who becomes a lord in reality may be 
an upstart — a mere pretender, without the sterling 
essence ; so that all that is of any worth in this 
supposed transition is purely imaginary and impos- 



108 ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

sible.* Kings are so accustomed to look down 
on all the rest of the world, that they consider 
the condition of mortality as vile and intoler- 
able, if stripped of royal state, and cry out in the 
bitterness of their despair, ; 'Give me a crown, 
or a tomb ! " It should seem from this as if all 
mankind would change with the first crowned head 
that could propose the alternative, or that it would 
be only the presumption of the supposition, or a 
sense of their own imworthiness, that would deter 
them. Perhaps there is not a single throne that, 
if it was to -be filled by this sort of voluntary me- 
tempsychosis, would not remain empty. Many 
would, no doubt, be glad to " monarchise, be 
feared, and kill with looks" in their own per- 
sons and after their own fashion : but who would 
be the double of those shadows of a shade — 
those " tenth transmitters of a foolish face " — 
Charles X and Ferdinand VII ? If monarcbs 
have little sympathy with mankind, mankind have 
even less with monarchs. They are merely to us 

* "When Lord Byron was cut by the great, on account of 
his quarrel with his wife, he stood leaning on a marble 
slab at the entrance of a room, while troops of duchesses 
and countesses passed out. One little, pert, red-haired girl 
staid a few paces behind the rest ; and, as she passed him, 
said with a nod, "Aye, you should hare married me, and 
then all this wouldn't have happened to you ! " 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 109 

a sort of state-puppets, or royal wax-work, which 
we may gaze at with superstitious wonder, but 
have no wish to become ; and he who should medi- 
tate such a change must not only feel by anticipa- 
tion an utter contempt for the slough of humanity 
which he is prepared to cast, but must feel an abso- 
lute void and want of attraction in those lofty and 
incomprehensible sentiments which are to supply 
its place. With respect to actual royalty, the spell 
is in a great measure broken. But, among ancient 
monarchs, there is no one, I think, who envies 
Darius or Xerxes. One has a different feeling 
with respect to Alexander or Pyrrhus ; but this is 
because they were great men as well as great 
kings, and the soul is up in arms at the mention 
of their names as at the sound of a trumpet. But 
as to all the rest — those "in the catalogue who go 
for kings" — the praying, eating, drinking, dressing 
monarchs of the earth, in time past or present — 
one would as soon think of wishing to personate 
the Golden Calf, or to turn out with Nebuchad- 
nezzar to graze, as to be transformed into one of 
that "swinish multitude." There is no point of 
affinity. The extrinsic circumstances are imposing : 
but, within, there is nothing but morbid humours 
and proud flesh ! Some persons might vote for 
Charlemagne ; and there are others who would 
have no objection to be the modern Charlemagne, 



110 ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

with all he inflicted and suffered, even after the 
necromantic field of Y\ T aterloo, and the bloody 
wreath on the vacant brow of his conqueror, and 
that fell jailer set over him by a craven foe, that 
"glared round his soul, and mocked his closing 
eyelids ! " 

It has been remarked, that could we at pleasure 
change our situation in life, more persons would be 
found anxious to descend than to ascend in the 
scale of society. One reason mav be, that we have 
it more in our power to do so ; and this encourages 
the thought^and makes it familiar to us. A second 
is, that we naturally wish to throw off the cares of 
state, of fortune or business, that oppress us, and 
to seek repose before we find it in the grave. A 
third reason is, that, as we descend to common 
life, the pleasures are simple, natural, such as all 
can enter into, and therefore excite a general inte- 
rest, and combine all suffrages. Of the different 
occupations of life, none is beheld with a more 
pleasing emotion, or less aversion to a change for 
our own, than that of a shepherd tending his flock: 
the pastoral ages have been the envy and the 
theme of all succeeding ones ; and a beggar with 
his crutch is more closely allied than the monarch 
and his crown to the associations of mirth and 
heart 's-ease. On the other hand, it must be ad- 
mitted that our pride is too apt to prefer grandeur 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. Ill 

to happiness ; and that our passions make us envy 
great vices oftener than great virtues. 

The world show their sense in nothing more 
than in a distrust and aversion to those changes of 
situation which only tend to make the successful 
candidates ridiculous, and which do not carry along 
with them a mind adequate to the circumstances. 
The common people, in this respect, are more 
shrewd and judicious than their superiors, from 
feeling their own awkwardness and incapacity, and 
often decline, with an instinctive modesty, the 
troublesome honours intended for them. They do 
not overlook their original defects so readily as 
others overlook their acquired advantages. It is 
not wonderful, therefore, that op era- singers and 
dancers refuse, or only condescend as it were, to 
accept lords, though the latter are so often fasci- 
nated by them. The fair performer knows (better 
than her unsuspecting admirer) how little connexion 
there is between the dazzling figure she makes on 
the stage and that which she may make in private 
life, and is in no hurry to convert "the drawing- 
room into a Green-room." The nobleman (sup- 
posing him not to be very wise) is astonished at the 
miraculous powers of art in 

" The fair, the chaste, the inexpressible she ; " 

and thinks such a paragon must easily conform to 



112 ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

the routine of manners and society which every 
trifling woman of quality of Ms acquaintance, from 
sixteen to sixty, goe3 through without effort. This 
is a hasty or a wilful conclusion. Things of habit 
only come by habit, and inspiration here avails 
nothing. A man of fortune who marries an actress 
for her fine performance of tragedy, has been well 
compared to the person who bought Punch. The 
lady is not unfrequently aware of the inconsequen- 
tially, and unwilling to be put on the shelf, and 
hid in the nursery of some musty country-mansion. 
Servant girls, of any sense and spirit, treat their 
masters (who make serious love to them) with suit- 
able contempt. What is it but a proposal to drag 
an unmeaning trollop at his heels through life, to 
her own annoyance and the ridicule of all his 
friends? No woman, I suspect, ever forgave a 
man who raised her from a low condition in life 
(it is a perpetual obligation and reproach) ; though 
I believe, men often feel the most disinterested 
regard for women under such circumstances. San- 
cho Panza discovered no less folly in his eagerness 
to enter upon his new government, than wisdom 
in quitting it as fast as possible. Why will Mr 
Cobbett persist in getting into Parliament ? He 
would find himself no longer the same man. What 
member of Parliament, I should like to know, 
could write his ' Register' ? As a popular partisan, 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 113 

ho may (for aught I can say) be a match for the 
whole Honourable House ; but, by obtaining a seat 
in St Stephen's Chapel, he would only be equal to 
a 576th part of it. It was surely a puerile ambi- 
tion in Mr Addington to succeed Mr Pitt as prime- 
minister. The situation was only a foil to his 
imbecility. Gipsies have a fine faculty of evasion ; s 
catch them who can hi the same place or story 
wice ! Take them ; teach them the comforts of 
civilization ; confine them in warm rooms, with 
tuck carpets and down beds ; and they will fry out 
oi the window — like the bird, described by Chau- 
cer, out of its golden cage. I maintain that there 
is no common language or medium of understand- 
ing between people of education and without it— 
between those who judge of things from books or x 
from their senses. Ignorance has so far the 
advantage over learning ; for it can make an appeal 
to you from what you know ; but you cannot re-act 
upon it through that which it is a perfect stranger 
to. Ignorance is, therefore, power. This is what 
foiled Buonaparte in Spain and Russia. The peo- 
ple can only be gained over by informing them, 
though they may be enslaved by fraud or force. 
i; What is it, then, he does like ?" — " Good victuals 
and drink!" As if you had not these too; but 
because he has them not, he thinks of nothing- 
else, and laughs at you and your refinements, sup- 



114 OX PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

posing you live upon air. To those who are de- 
prived of every other advantage, even nature is a 
book sealed. I have made this capital mistake all 
my life, in imagining that those objects which lay 
open to all, and excited an interest merely from 
the idea of them, spoke a common language to all ; 
and that nature was a kind of universal home, 
where all ages, sexes, classes meet. Not so. The 
vital air, the sky, the woods, the streams — al 
these go for nothing, except with a favoured fev. 
The poor are taken up with their bodily wants — 
the rich, with external acquisitions : the one, wih 
the sense of property — the other, of its privation. 
Both have the same distaste for sentiment. The 
genteel are the slaves of appearances — the vulgar, 
of necessity ; and neither has the smallest regard 
to worth, refinement, generosity. All savages are 
irreclaimable. I can understand the Irish charac- 
ter better than the Scotch. I hate the formal 
crust of circumstances and the mechanism of 
society. I have been recommended, indeed, to 
settle down into some respectable profession for 
life ;— 

" Ah ! why so soon the blossom tear !" 

I am " in no haste to be venerable I" 

In thinking of those one might wish to have 
been, many people will exclaim, " Surely, you 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 115 

would like to have been Shakspeare ?" Would 
Garrick have consented to the change ? No, nor 
should he ; for the applause which he received, 
and on which he lived, was more adapted to his 
genius and taste. If Garrick had agreed to be 
Shakspeare, he would have made it a previous con- 
dition that he was to be a better player. He 
vould have insisted on taking some higher part 
than 'Polonius' or the * Grave-digger.' Ben Jon- 
son and his companions at the Mermaid would not 
have known their old friend Will in his new dis- 
guise. The modern Roscius would have scouted 
the halting player. He would have shrunk from 
the parts of the inspired poet. If others are 
unlike us, we feel it as a presumption and an 
impertinence to usurp their place ; if they are 
like us, it seems a work of supererogation. We 
are not to be cozened out of our existence for no- 
thing. It has been ingeniously urged, as an 
objection to having been Milton, that " then we 
should not have had the pleasure of reading ' Para- 
dise Lost/ " Perhaps I should incline to draw 
lots with Pope, but that he was deformed, and did 
not sufficiently relish Milton and Shakspeare. As 
it is, we can enjoy his verses and their s too. Why, 
having these, need we ever be dissatisfied with 
ourselves ? Goldsmith is a person whom I con- 
siderably affect, notwithstanding his blunders and 



116 OX PEKSONAL IDENTITY. 

Ms misfortunes. The author of the * Vicar of 
Wakefield,' and of * Ketaliation,' is one whose 
temper must have had something eminently ami- 
able, delightful, gay, and happy in it. 

u A certain tender bloom his fame o'erspreads." 

But then I could never make up my mind to his 
preferring Rowe and Dryden to the worthies of tha 
Elizabethan age ; nor could I, in like manner, for- 
give Sir Joshua — whom I number among those 
whose existence was marked with a ivhite stone, and. 
on whose tomb might be inscribed " Thrice Fortu- 
nate!'' — his treating Nicholas Poussin with con- 
tempt. Differences in matters of taste and opinion 
are points of honour — " stuff o' the conscience" — 
stumbling-blocks not to be got over. Others, we 
easily grant, may have more wit, learning, imagi- 
nation, riches, strength, beauty, which we should, 
be glad to borrow of them ; but that they have 
sounder or better views of things, or that we should 
act wisely in changing in this respect, is what we 
can by no means persuade ourselves. AVe may not 
be the lucky possessors of what is best or most desir- 
able ; but our notion of what is best and most 
desirable we will give up to no man by choice or 
compulsion ; and unless others (the greatest wits 
or brightest geniuses) can come into our way of 
thinking, we must humbly beg leave to remain as we 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 117 

are. A CalvAnistic preacher would not relinquish 
a single point of faith to be the Pope of Eome ; 
nor would a strict Unitarian acknowledge the mys- 
tery of the Holy Trinity to have painted Kaphaers 
' Assembly of the Just.' In the range of ideal 
excellence, we are distracted by variety and re- 
pelled by differences : the imagination is fickle and 
fastidious, and requires a combination of all pos- 
sible qualifications, which never met. Habit alone 
is blind and tenacious of the most homely advan- 
tages ; and after running the tempting round of 
nature, fame, and fortune, we wrap ourselves up in 
our familiar recollections and humble pretensions 
— as the lark, after long fluttering on sunny wing, 
sinks into its lowly bed ! 

We can have no very importunate craving, nor 
very great confidence, in wishing to change cha- 
racters, except with those with whom we are inti- 
mately acquainted by their works ; and having 
these by us (which is all we know or covet in 
them), what would we have more ? We can have 
no more of a cat than her skin ; nor of an author 
than his brains. By becoming Shakspeare in 
reality we cut ourselves out of reading Milton, 
Pope, Dry den, and a thousand more — all of whom 
we have in our possession, enjoy, and are, by turns, 
in the best part of them, their thoughts, without any 
metamorphosis or miracle at all. What a micro- 



118 ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

oosni is ours ! What a Proteus is the human 
mind ! All that we know, think of, or can admire, 
in a manner becomes ourselves. We are not (the 
meanest of us) a volume, but a whole library ! In 
this calculation of problematical contingencies, the 
lapse of time makes no difference. One would as 
soon have been Eaphael as any modem artist. 
Twenty, thirty, or forty years of elegant enjoy- 
ment and lofty feeling were as great a luxury ia 
the fifteenth as in the nineteenth century. But 
Eaphael did not live to see Claude, nor Titian 
Eembrandt. Those who found arts and sciences 
are not witnesses of their accumulated results and 
benefits ; nor in general do they reap the meed of 
praise which is their due. We who come after in 
some " laggard age/' have more enjoyment of their 
fame than they had. Who would have missed the 
sight of the Louvre in all its glory to have been 
one of those whose works enriched it ? Would it 
not have been giving a certain good for an uncer- 
tain advantage ? No : I am as sure (if it is not 
presumption to say so) of what passed through 
Eaphael's mind as of what passes through my 
own ; and I know the difference between seeing 
(though even that is a rare privilege) and produc- 
ing such perfection. At one time I was so devoted 
to Eembrandt, that I think if the Prince of Dark- 
ness had made me the offer in some rash mood, I 



ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. 119 

should have been tempted to close with it, and 
should have become (in happy hour, and in down- 
right earnest) the great master of light and shade ! 
I have run myself out of my materials for this 
Essay, and want a well-turned sentence or two to 
conclude with ; like Benvenuto Cellini, who com- 
plains that, with all the brass, tin, iron, and lead 
ho could muster in the house, his statue of Perseus 
wa3 left imperfect, with a dent in the heel of it. 
Once more then— I believe there is one character 
that all the world would like to change with — 
which is that of a favoured rival. Even hatred 
gives way to envy. We would be any thing — a 
toad in a dungeon — to live upon her smile, which 
is our all of earthly hope and happiness ; nor can 
we, in our infatuation, conceive that there is any 
difference of feeling on the subject, or that the 
pressure of her hand is not in itself divine, making 
those to whom such bliss is deigned like the Im- 
mortal Gods ! 
1828. 



ESSAY vn. 

MIND AND MOTIVE, 



" The web of our lives is of a mingled yarn." 

■■*' Anthony Codrus Urceus, a most learned and 
unfortunate Italian, born 1446, was a striking in- 
stance"' (says his biographer) s< of the miseries men 
bring upon themselves by setting their affections 
unreasonably on trifles. This learned man lived 
at Forli, and had an apartment in the palace. His 
room was so very dark, that he was forced to use 
a candle in the day-time ; and one day, going 
abroad without putting it out, his library was set 
on fire, and some papers which he had prepared 
for the press were burned. The instant he was 
informed of this ill news, he was affected even to 
madness. He ran furiously to the palace, and, 
stopping at the door of his apartment, he cried 
aloud, ' Christ Jesus ! what mighty crime have I 
committed ? whom of your followers have I ever 
injured, that you thus rage with inexpiable hatred 



MtND AND MOTIVE. 121 

against me ? ' Then turning himself to an image 
of the Virgin Mary near at hand, * Virgin' (says 
he) ' hear what I have to say, for I speak in ear- 
nest, and with a composed spirit. If I shall hap- 
pen to address you in my dying moments, I 
humhly entreat you not to hear me, nor receive 
me into heaven, for I am determined to spend all 
eternity in hell.' Those who heard these blas- 
phemous expressions endeavoured to comfort him, 
but all to no purpose ; for, the society of mankind 
being no longer supportable to him, he left the 
city, and retired, like a savage, to the deep solitude 
of a wood. Some say he was murdered there by 
ruffians ; others that he died at Bologna, in 1500 r 
after much contrition and penitence." 

Almost every one may here read the history of 
his own life. There is scarcely a moment in which 
we are not in some degree guilty of the same kind 
of absurdity, which was here carried to such a 
singular excess. We waste our regrets on what 
cannot be recalled, or fix our desires on what we 
know cannot be attained. Every hour is the slave 
of the last ; and we are seldom masters either of 
our thoughts or of our actions. We are the crea- 
tures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more 
than of reason or self-interest. Rousseau, in his 
■ Emilius,' proposed to educate a perfectly reason- 
able man, who was to have passions and affections 



122 MIND AXD MOTIVE. 

like other men, but with an absolute control over 
them. He was to love and to be wise. This is 
a contradiction in terms. Even in the common 
transactions and daily intercourse of life, we 
are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or 
accident. The falling of a tea-cup puts us out 
of temper for the day ; and a quarrel that com- 
menced about the pattern of a gown may end 
only with our lives. 

" Friends row fast sworn, 
On a dissension of a doit, break out 
To bitterest enmity. So fellest foes, 
Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep, 
To take the one the other, by some chance, 
Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends, 
And interjoin their issues." 

We are little better than humoured children to 
the last, and play a mischievous game at cross pur- 
poses with our own happiness and that of others. 

We have given the above story as a striking 
contradiction to the prevailing doctrine of modern 
systems of morals and metaphysics, that man is a 
purely sensual and selfish animal, governed solely 
by a regard either to his immediate gratification 
or future interest. This doctrine we mean to 
oppose with all our might, whenever we meet with 
it. We are, however, less disposed to quarrel with 
it, as it is opposed to reason and philosophy, than 



MIND AND MOTIVE. 123 

as it interferes with common sense and observation. 
If the absurdity in question .had been confined to 
the schools, we should not have gone out of our 
way to meddle with it : but it has gone abroad in 
the world, has crept into ladies' boudoirs, is entered 
in the commonplace book of beaux, is in the mouth 
of the learned and the ignorant, and forms a part of 
popular opinion. It is perpetually applied as a 
false measure to the characters and conduct of men 
in the common affairs of the world, and it is there- 
fore our business to rectify it if we can. In fact, 
whoever sets out on the idea of reducing all our 
motives and actions to a simple principle, must 
either take a very narrow and superficial view of 
human nature, or make a very perverse use of his 
understanding in reasoning on what he sees. The 
frame of our minds, like that of our bodies, is 
exceedingly complicated. Besides mere sensibi- 
lity to pleasure and pain, there are other origi- 
nal independent principles, necessarily interwoven 
with the nature of man as an active and intelli- 
gent being, and which, blended together in differ- 
ent proportions, give their form and colour to our 
lives. Without some other essential faculties, such 
as will, imagination, &c, to give effect and direction 
to our physical sensibility, this faculty could be 
of no possible use or influence ; and with those 
other faculties joined to it, this pretended instinct 



124 M1XD AND MOTIVE. 

of self-love will be subject to be everlastingly 
modified and controlled by those faculties, both 
in what regards our own good and that of 
others ; that is, must itself become in a great mea- 
sure dependent on the very instruments it uses. 
The two most predominant principles in the mind, 
besides sensibility and self-interest, are imagination 
and self-will, or (in general) the love of strong ex- 
citement, both in thought and action. To these 
sources may be traced the various passions, pur- 
suits, habits, affections, follies and caprices, virtues 
and vices, of mankind. We shall confine ourselves, 
in the present article, to give some account of the 
influence exercised by the imagination over the 
feelings. — To an intellectual being, it cannot be 
altogether arbitrary what ideas it shall have, 
whether pleasurable or painful. Our ideas do 
not originate in our love of pleasure, and they 
cannot therefore depend absolutely upon it. They 
have another principle, If the imagination were 
"the servile slave" of our self-love, if our ideas 
were emanations of our sensitive nature, encour- 
aged if agreeable, and excluded the instant they 
became otherwise, or encroached on the former 
principle, then there might be a tolerable pretence 
for the Epicurean philosophy which is here spoken 
of. But for any such entire and mechanical sub 
■serviency of the operations of the one principle to 



MIND AND MOTIVE. 125 

the dictates of the other, there is not the slightest 
foundation in reality. The attention which the 
mind gives to its ideas is not always owing to the 
gratification derived from them, hut to the strength 
and truth of the impressions themselves, i. e. to 
their involuntary power over the mind. This ob- 
servation will account for a very general principle 
in the mind, which cannot, we conceive, be satis- 
factorily explained in any other way, we mean the 
jjoxver of fascination. — Every one has heard the 
stoiy of the girl, who being left alone by her com- 
panions, in order to frighten her, in a room with a 
dead body, at first attempted to get out, and 
shrieked violently for assistance, but finding her- 
self shut in, ran and embraced the corpse, and was 
found senseless in its arms. 

It is said that in such cases there is a desperate 
effort made to get rid of the dread by converting it 
into the reality. There may be some truth in tliis 
account, but we do not think it contains the whole 
truth. The event produced in the present instance 
does not bear out the conclusion. The progress of 
the passion does not seem to have been that of 
diminishing or removing the terror by coming in 
contact with the object, but of carrying this terror 
to its height from an intense and irresistible im- 
pulse, overcoming every other feeling. 

It is a well-known fact that few persons can 



126 MIND AND MOTIVE. 

stand safely on the edge of a precipice, or walk 
along the parapet wall of a house, without being in 
danger of throwing themselves down ; not, we pre- 
sume, from a principle of self-preservation ; but in 
consequence of a strong idea having taken posses- 
sion of the mind, from which it cannot well escape, 
which absorbs every other consideration, and con- 
founds and overrules all self-regards. The impulse 
cannot in this case be resolved into a desire to re- 
move the uneasiness of fear, for the only danger 
arises from the fear. We have been told by a per- 
son, not at all given to exaggeration, that he once 
felt a strong propensity to throw himself into a 
cauldron of boiling lead, into which he was looking. 
These are what Shakspeare calls "the toys of des- 
peration." People sometimes marry, and even fall 
in love, on this principle — that is, through mere 
apprehension, or what is called a fatality. In like 
manner, we find instances of persons who are as it 
were naturally delighted with whatever is disagree- 
able, — who catch all sorts of unbecoming tones and 
gestures, — who always say what they should not, 
and what they do not mean to say, — in whom in- 
temperance of imagination and incontinence of 
tongue are a disease, and who are governed by an 
almost infallible instinct of absurdity. 

The love of imitation has the same general 
source. We dispute for ever about Hogarth, and 



MIND AND MOTIVE. 127 

the question can never be decided according to the 
common ideas on the subject of taste. His pic- 
tures appeal to the love of truth, not to the sense 
of beauty ; but the one is as much an essential 
principle of our nature as the other. They fill up 
the void of the mind ; they present an everlasting 
succession and variety of ideas. There is a fine 
observation somewhere made by Aristotle, that the 
mind has a natural appetite of curiosity, or desire 
to know ; and most of that knowledge which 
comes in by the eye, for this presents us with the 
greatest variety of differences. Hogarth is re- 
lished only by persons of a certain strength of 
mind and penetration into character ; for the sub- 
jects in themselves are not pleasing, and this 
objection is only redeemed by the exercise and 
activity which they give to the understanding. 
The great difference between what is meant by 
a severe and an effeminate taste or style, depends 
on the distinction here made. 

Our teasing ourselves to recollect the names of 
places or persons we have forgotten, the love of 
riddles and of abstruse philosophy, are all illus- 
trations of the same general principle of curiosity, 
or the love of intellectual excitement. Again, our 
impatience to be delivered of a secret that we 
know ; the necessity which lovers have for confi- 
dants, auricular confession, and the declarations so 



128 MIND AND MOTIVE. 

commonly made by criminals of their guilt, are 
effects of the involuntary power exerted by the 
imagination over the feelings. Nothing can be 
more untrue, than that the whole course of our 
ideas, passions, and pursuits, is regulated by a 
regard to self-interest. Our attachment to certain 
objects is much oftener in proportion to the strength 
of the impression they make on us, to their power 
of riveting and fixing the attention, than to the 
gratification we derive from them. We are per- 
haps more apt to dwell upon circumstances that 
excite disgust and shock our feelings, than on those 
of an agreeable nature. This, at least, is the case 
where this disposition is particularly strong, as in 
people of nervous feelings and morbid habits of 
thinking. Thus the mind is often haunted with 
painful images and recollections, from the hold they 
have taken of the imagination. We cannot shake 
them off, though we strive to do it : nay, we even 
court their company ; we will not part with them 
out of our presence ; we strain our aching sight 
after them ; we anxiously recal every feature, and 
contemplate them in all their aggravated colours. 
There are a thousand passions and fancies that 
thwart our purposes and disturb our repose. Grief 
and fear are almost as welcome inmates of the 
breast as hope or joy, and more obstinately che- 
rished. We return to the objects which have 



MIKD AND MOTIVE. 129 

excited them, we brood over them, they become 
almost inseparable from the mind, necessary to it ; 
they assimilate all objects to the gloom of our own 
thoughts, and make the will a party against itself. 
This is one chief source of most of the passions that 
prey like vultures on the heart, and embitter hu- 
man life. We hear moralists and divines perpetu- 
ally exclaiming, with mingled indignation and 
surprise, at the folly of mankind in obstinately 
persisting in these tormenting and violent pas- 
sions, such as envy, revenge, sullenness, despair, 
&C. This is to them a mystery ; and it will always 
remain an inexplicable one, while the love of hap- 
piness is considered as the only spring of human 
conduct and desires.* 

The love of power or action is another indepen- 
dent principle of the human mind, in the different 
degrees in which it exists, and which are not by 

* As a contrast to the story at 'the beginning of this 
article, it will he not amiss to mention that of Sir Isaac 
Newton on a somewhat similar occasion. He had prepared 
some papers for the press with great care and study, but 
happening to leave a lighted candle on the table with 
them, his dog Diamond overturned the candle, and the 
labour of several years was destroyed. This great man, on 
seeing what was done, only shook his head, and said with a 
smile, "Ah, Diamond, you don't know what mischief you 
have done ! " 

r 



130 MIND AND MOTIVE. 

any means in exact proportion to its physical sensi- 
bility. It seems evidently absurd to suppose that 
sensibility to pleasure or pain is the only principle 
of action. It is almost too obvious to. remark, that 
sensibility alone, without an active principle in the 
mind, could never produce action. The soul might 
lie dissolved hr pleasure, or be agonized with woe ; 
but the impulses of feeling, in order to excite pas- 
sion, desire, or will, must be first communicated to 
some other faculty. There must be a principle, a 
fund of activity somewhere, by and through which 
our sensibility operates ; and that this active prin- 
ciple owes all its force, its precise degree of direc- 
tion, to the sensitive faculty, is neither self-evident 
nor true. Strength of will is not always nor gene- 
rally in proportion to strength of feeling. There 
are different degrees of activity as of sensibility in 
the mind ; and our passions, characters, and pur- 
suits, often depend no less upon the one than on 
the other. We continually make a distinction in 
common, discourse between sensibility and irrita- 
bility, between passion and feeling, between the 
nerves and muscles ; and we find that the most 
voluptuous people are in general the most indolent. 
Every one who has looked closely into human 
nature must have observed persons who are natur- 
ally and habitually restless in the extreme, but 
without any extraordinary susceptibility to pleasure 



MIND AND MOTIVE. 131 

or pain, always making or finding excuses to do 
something, — whose actions constantly outrun the 
occasion, and who are eager in the pursuit of the 
greatest trifles, — whose impatience of the smallest 
repose keeps them always employed about nothing 
— and whose whole lives are a continued work of 
supererogation. There are others again who seem 
born to act from a spirit of contradiction only, 
that is, who are ready to act not only without a 
reason, but against it,-— who are ever at cross- 
purposes with themselves and others, — who are 
not satisfied unless they are doing two opposite 
things at a time, — who contradict what you say, 
and if you assent to them, contradict what they 
have said, — who regularly leave the pursuit in 
which they are successful to engage in some other 
in which they have no chance of success, — who 
make a point of encountering difficulties and aim- 
ing at impossibilities, that there may be no end of 
their exhaustless task : while there is a third class 
whose vis inertia scarcely any motives can over- 
come, — who are devoured by their feelings, and the 
slaves of their passions, but who can take no pains 
and use no means to gratify them, — who, if roused 
to action by any unforeseen accident, require a con- 
tinued stimulus to urge them on,— who fluctuate 
between desire and want of resolution, — whose 
brightest projects burst like a bubble as soon as 



132 MIND AND MOTIVE. 

formed, — who yield to every obstacle, — who almost 
sink under the weight of the atmosphere, — who 
cannot brush aside a cobweb in their path, and are 
stopped by an insect's wing. Indolence is want of 
will — the absence or defect of the active principle 
—a repugnance to motion ; and whoever has been 
much tormented with this passion, must, we are 
sure, have felt that the inclination to indulge it is 
something veiy distinct from the love of pleasure 
or actual enjoyment. Ambition is the reverse of 
indolence, and is the love of power or action in 
great things. Avarice, also, as it relates to the 
acquisition of riches, is, in a great measure, an 
active and enterprising feeling ; nor does the 
hoarding of wealth, after it is acquired, seem to 
have much connection with the love of pleasure. 
What is called niggardliness, very often, we are 
convinced from particular instances that we have 
known, arises less from a selfish principle than 
from a love of contrivance, from the study of eco- 
nomy as an art, for want of a better, from a pride 
in making the most of a little, and in not exceed- 
ing a certain expense previously determined upon ; 
all which is wilfulness, and is perfectly consistent, 
as it is frequently found united, with the most 
lavish expenditure and the utmost disregard for 
money on other occasions. A miser may in general 
be looked upon as a particular species of virtuoso. 



MIND AND MOTIVE. 133 

The constant desire in the rich to leave wealth 
in large masses, by aggrandizing some branch of 
their families, or sometimes in snch a manner as 
to accumulate for centuries, shows that the imagi- 
nation has a considerable share in this passion. 
Intemperance, debauchery, gluttony, and other 
vices of that kind, may be attributed to an excess 
of sensuality or gross sensibility ; though even here, 
we think it evident that habits of intoxication are 
produced quite as much by the strength as by the 
agreeableness of the excitement ; and with respect 
to some other vicious habits, curiosity makes many 
more votaries than inclination. The love of truth, 
when it predominates, produces inquisitive charac- 
ters, the whole tribe of gossips, tale-bearers, harm- 
less busy-bodies, your blunt honest creatures, who 
never conceal what they think, and who are the 
more sure to tell it you the less you want to hear 
it, — and now and then a philosopher. 

Our passions in general are to be traced more 
immediately to the active part of our nature, to the 
love of power, or to strength of will. Such are all 
those which arise out of the difficulty of accom- 
plishment, which become more intense from the 
efforts made to attain the object, and which derive 
their strength from opposition. Mr Hobbes says 
well on this subject : — 

" But for an utmost end, in which the ancient 



134 MIND AND MOTIVE. 

philosophers placed felicity, and disputed much 
concerning the way thereto, there is no such thing 
in this world nor way to it, more than to Utopia 5 
for while we live, we have desires, and desire pre- 
supposeth a further end. Seeing all delight is 
appetite, and desire of something further, there can 
be no contentment but in proceeding, and therefore 
we are not to marvel, when we see that as men 
attain to more riches, honour, or other power, so 
their appetite continually groweth more and more ; 
and when they are come to the utmost degree of 
some kind of power, they pursue some other, as 
long as in any kind they think themselves behind 
any other. Of those therefore that have attained 
the highest degree of honour and riches, some have 
affected mastery in some art, as Nero in music and 
poetry, Commodus in the ait of a gladiator ; and 
such as affect not some such thing, must find diver- 
sion and recreation of their thoughts in the contention 
either of play or business, and men justly complain 
as of a great grief that they know not what to do. 
Felicity, therefore, by which we mean continual 
delight, consists not in having prospered, but in 
prospering." 

This account of human nature, true as it is, 
would be a mere romance, if physical sensibility 
were the only faculty essential to man, that is, if 
we were the slaves of voluptuous indolence. But 



MIND AND MOTIVE. 135 

our desires are kindled by their own heat, the will 
is urged on by a restless impulse, and, without action, 
enjoyment becomes insipid. The passions of men 
are not in proportion only to their sensibility, or 
to the desirableness of the object, but to the vio- 
lence and irritability of their tempers, and the 
obstacles to their success. Thus an object to which 
we were almost iu different while we thought it in 
our power, often excites the most ardent pursuit or 
the most painful regret, as soon as it is placed out 
of our reach. How eloquently is the contradiction 
between our desires and our success described in 
Don Quixote, where it is said of the lover, that " he 
courted a statue, hunted the wind, cried aloud to 
the desert ! " 

The necessity of action to the mind, and the 
keen edge it gives to our desires, is shown in the 
different value we set on past and future objects. 
It is commonly, and we might almost say univer- 
sally, supposed, that there is an essential difference 
in the two cases. In this instance, however, the 
strength of our passions has converted an evident 
absurdity into one of the most inveterate preju- 
dices of the human mind. That the future is 
really or in itself of more consequence than the 
past, is what we can neither assent to nor even 
conceive. It is true, the past lias ceased to be, 
and is no longer anything, except to the mind ; 



I3G KIND AND MOTIVE. 

but the future is still to come, and has an exist- 
ence in the mind only. The one is at an end, the 
other has not even had a beginning ; both are 
purely ideal : so that this argument would prove 
that the present only is of any real value, and that 
both past and future objects are equally indifferent, 
alike nothing. Indeed, the future is, if possible, 
more imaginary than the past ; for the past may in 
some sense be said to exist in its consequences ; it 
acts still ; it is present to us in its effects ; the 
mouldering ruins and broken fragments still re- 
main ; but of the future there is no trace. What 
a blank does the history of the world, for the next 
six thousand years, present to the mind compared 
with that of the last ? All that strikes the imagi- 
nation, or excites any interest in the mighty scene, 
is what has been. — Neither in reality, then, nor as 
a subject of general contemplation, has the future 
any advantage over the past ; but with respect to 
our own passions and pursuits it has. We regret 
the pleasures we have enjoyed, and eagerly antici- 
pate those which are to come ; we dwell with satis- 
faction on the evils from which we have escaped, 
and dread future pain. The good that is past is 
like money that is spent, which is of no use, and 
about which we give ourselves no farther concern. 
The good we expect is like a store yet untouched, 
in the enjoyment of which we promise ourselves 



MIND AND MOTIVE^ 137 

infinite gratification. What has happened to us 
we thiuk of no consequence. — what is to happen to 
us, of the greatest. Why so ? Because the one 
is in our power, and the other not ; because the 
efforts of the will to bring an object to pass or to 
avert it, strengthen our attachment to or our aver- 
sion from that object ; because the habitual pur- 
suit of any purpose redoubles the ardour of our 
pursuit, and converts the speculative and indolent 
interest we should otherwise take in it into real 
passion. Our regrets, anxiety, and wishes, are 
thrown away upon the past, but we encourage our 
disposition to exaggerate the importance of the 
future, as of the utmost use in aiding our resolu- 
tions and stimulating our exertions. 

It in some measure confirms this theory, that 
men attach more or less importance to past and 
future events, according as they are more or less 
engaged in action and the busy scenes of life. 
Those who have a fortune to make, or are in pur- 
suit of rank and power, are regardless of the past, 
for it does not contribute to their views : those who 
have nothing to do but to think, take nearly the 
same interest in the past as in the future. The 
contemplation of the one is as delightful and real 
as of the other. The season of hope comes to an 
end, but the remembrance of it is left. The past 
still lives in the memory of those who have leisure 



138 MEND AND MOTIVE. 

to look back upon the way that they have trod, and 
can from it " catch glimpses that may make them 
less forlorn." The turbulence of action and uneasi- 
ness of desire must dwell upon the future : it is 
only amidst the quiet innocence of shepherds, in 
the simplicity of the pastoral ages, that a tomb 
was found with this inscription — " I also was an 
Arcadian ! " 

We feel that some apology is necessary for hav- 
ing thus plunged our readers all at once into the 
middle of metaphysics. If it should be asked what 
use such studies are of, we might answer with 
Hume, perhaps of none, except that there are cer- 
tain persons who find more entertainment in them 
than in any other. An account of this matter, with 
which we were amused ourselves, and which may 
therefore amuse others, we met with some time ago 
in a metaphysical allegory, which begins in this 
manner : — 

" In the depth of a forest, in the kingdom of 
Indostan, lived a monkey, who, before his last step 
of transmigration, had occupied a human tenement. 
He had been a Bramin, skilful in theology, and in 
all abstruse learning. He was wont to hold in 
admiration the ways of nature, and delighted to 
penetrate the mysteries in which she was enrobed ; 
but in pursuing the footsteps of philosophy, he 
wandered too far from the abode of the social Vir- 



MIND AND MOTIVE. 139 

tues. In order to pursue his studies, he had re- 
tired to a cave on the banks of the Jumna. There 
he forgot society, and neglected ablution : and 
therefore his soul was degraded to a condition 
below humanity. So inveterate were the habits 
which he had contracted in his human state, that 
his spirit was still influenced by his passion for 
abstruse study. He sojourned in this wood from 
youth to age, regardless of everything, save cocoa- 
nuts and metaphysics.''' — For our own part, we 
should be content to pass our time much in the 
same manner as this learned savage, if we could 
only find a substitute for his cocoa-nuts ! We do 
not however wish to recommend the same pursuit 
to others, nor to dissuade them from it. It has its 
pleasures and its pains — its. successes and its dis- 
appointments. It is neither quite so sublime nor 
quite so uninteresting as it is sometimes repre- 
sented. The worst is, that much thought on diffi- 
cult subjects tends, after a certain time, to destroy 
the natural gaiety and dancing of the spirits ; it 
deadens the elastic force of the mind, weighs upon 
the heart, and makes us insensible to the common 
enjoyments and pursuits of life. 

' ; Sithence no fairy lights, no quickning ray, 
Nor stir of pulse, nor objects to entice 
Abroad the spirits ; but the cloyster'd heart 
Sits squat at home, like pagod in a niche 
Obscure." 



140 MIND AND MOTIVE. 

Metaphysical reasoning is also one branch of the 
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The study 
of man, however, does, perhaps, less harm than a 
knowledge of the world, though it must be owned 
that the practical knowledge of vice and misery 
makes a stronger impression on the mind, when it 
has imbibed a habit of abstract reasoning,. Evil 
thus becomes embodied in a general principle, and 
shows its harpy form in all things. It is a fatal, 
inevitable necessity hanging over us. It follows 
us wherever we go : if we fly into the uttermost 
parts of the earth, it is there : whether we turn to 
the right or the left, we cannot escape from it. 
This, it is true, is the disease of philosophy ; but 
it is one to which it is liable in minds of a certain 
cast, after the first ardour of expectation has been 
disabused by experience, and the finer feelings 
have received an irrecoverable shock from the 
jarring of the world. 

Happy are they who live in the dream of their 
own existence, and see all things in the light of 
their own minds ; who walk by faith and hope ; to 
whom the guiding star of their youth still shines 
from afar, and into whom the spirit of the world 
has not entered ! They have not been u hurt by 
the archers," nor has the iron entered their souls. 
They live in the midst of arrows and of death, un- 
conscious of harm. The evil things come not nigh 
them. The shafts of ridicule pass unheeded by, 



MIND AND MOTIVE. .141 

and malice loses its sting. The example of vice 
does not rankle in their breasts, like the poisoned 
shirt of Nessus. Evil impressions fall off from 
them like drops of water. The yoke of life is to 
them light and supportable. The world has no 
hold on them. They are in it, not of it ; and a 
dream and a glory is ever around them ! 
1815. 



ESSAY VIII. 

OX MEANS AND ENDS. 



It is impossible to have things done "without doing 
them. This seems a truism ; and yet what is 
more common than to suppose that we shall find 
things done, merely by wishing it ? To put the 
will for the deed is as usual in practice as it is 
contrary to common sense. There is in fact no 
absurdity, no contradiction, of which the will is not 
capable. This is, I think, more remarkable in the 
English than in any other people, in whom (to 
judge by what I discover in myself) the will bears 
great and disproportioned sway. We will a thing : 
we contemplate the end intensely, and think it 
done, neglecting the necessary means to accom- 
plish it. The strong tendency of the mind to- 
wards it, the internal effort it makes to give being 
to the object of its idolatry, seems an adequate 
cause to produce the effect, and in a manner 
identified with it. This is more particularly the 



ON MEANS AND ENDS. 143 

case in what relates to the fine arts, and will 
account for some phenomena of the national 
character. The English school is distinguished 
by what are called ebauches, rude, violent attempts 
at effect, and a total inattention to the details or 
delicacy of finishing. Now this, I think, proceeds 
not exactly from grossness of perception, but from 
the wilfulness of our character ; our desire to have 
things our own w T ay, without any trouble or dis- 
traction of purpose. An object. strikes us : we see 
and feel the whole effect. We w T ish to produce a 
likeness of it; but we want to transfer this im- 
pression to the canvas as it is conveyed to us, 
simultaneously and intuitively, that is, to stamp it 
there at a blow, or otherwise we turn away with 
impatience and disgust, as if the means were an 
obstacle to the end, and every attention to the 
mechanical part of art were a deviation from our 
original purpose. We thus degenerate, after re- 
peated failures,- into -a slovenly style of art ; and 
that which was at first an undisciplined and irre- 
gular impulse becomes a habit, and then a theory. 
It seems strange that the love of the end should 
produce aversion to the means — but so it is ; nei- 
ther is it altogether unnatural. That which w r e 
are struck with, w r hich we are enamoured of, is the 
general appearance and result ; and it would cer- 
tainly be most desirable to produce the effect in 



144 ON MEANS AND ENDS. 

the same manner by a mere word or wish, if it 
were possible, without entering into any me- 
chanical drudgery or minuteness of detail or 
dexterity of execution, which though they are 
essential and component parts of the work, do not 
enter into our thoughts, and form no part of our 
contemplation. We may find it necessary on a 
cool calculation to go through and learn these, but 
in so doing we only submit to necessity, and they 
are still a diversion to and a suspension of our pur- 
pose for the time, at least unless practice gives that 
facility which almost identifies the two together or 
makes the process an unconscious one. The end 
thus devours up the means, or our eagerness for 
the one, where it is strong and unchecked, is in 
proportion to our impatience of the other. We 
view an object at a distance that excites an incli- 
nation to visit it, which we do after many tedious 
steps and intricate ways ; but if we could fly, we 
should never walk. The mind however has wings 
though the body has not, and it is this that pro- 
duces the contradiction in question. The first and 
strongest impulse of the mind is to produce any 
work at once and by the most energetic means ; 
but as this cannot always be done, we should not 
neglect other more mechanical ones, but that 
delusions of passion overrule the convictions of the 
understanding, and w^hat we strongly wish we 



ON MEANS AND ENDS. 145 

fancy to be possible and true. We are full of the 
effect we intend to produce, and imagine we have 
produced it, in spite of the evidence of our senses, 
and the suggestions of our friends. In fact, after a 
number of fruitless efforts and violent throes 
to produce an effect which we passionately long 
for, it seems an injustice not to have produced it ; 
if we have not commanded success, we have done 
more, we have deserved it ; we have copied nature 
or Titian in the spirit in which they ought to be 
copied, and we see them before us in our mind's 
eye ; there is the look, the expression, the some- 
thing or other which we chiefly aimed at, and thus 
we persist and make fifty excuses to deceive our- 
selves and confirm our errors, or if the light breaks 
upon us through all the disguises of sophistry and 
self-love, it is so painful that we shut our eyes to it ; 
the greater the mortification the more violent the 
effort to throw it off, and thus we stick to our de- 
termination and end where we began. What makes 
me think that this is the process of our minds, and 
not mere rusticity or want of apprehension is, that 
you will see an English artist admiring and thrown 
into raptures by the tucker of Titian's mistress, 
made up of an infinite number of little folds, but 
if he attempts to copy it, he proceeds to omit 
all these details, and dash it off by a single smear 
of his brush. This is not ignorance, or even 



146 ON MEANS AND ENDS. 

laziness, but what is called jumping at a conclu- 
sion. It is, in a word, an overweening purpose. 
He sees the details, the varieties, and their effects, 
and he admires them, but he sees them with a 
glance of his eye, and as a wilful man must have 
his way, he would reproduce them by a single dash 
of the pencil. The mixing his colours, the putting 
in and out, the giving his attention to a minute 
break, or softening in the particular lights and 
shades, is a mechanical and everlasting operation, 
very different from the delight he feels in con- 
templating the effect of all this when properly and 
finely done. Such details are foreign to his re- 
fined taste, and some doubts arise in his mind in 
the midst of his gratitude and his raptures, as to 
how Titian could resolve upon the drudgery of 
going through them, and whether it was not done 
by extreme facility of hand, and a sort of trick, 
abridging the mechanical labour. No one wrote 
or talked more enthusiastically about Titian's har- 
mony of colouring than the late Mr Barry, yet 
his own colouring was dead and dry, and if he had 
copied a Titian, he would have made it a mere 
splash, leaving out all that caused his wonder or 
admiration, after his English, or rather Irish 
fashion. We not only grudge the labour of begin- 
ning, but we give up, for the same reason, when 
we are near touching the goal of success ; and to 



ON MEANS AND ENDS. 147 

save a few last touches leave a work unfinished, 
and an object unattained. The immediate process, 
the daily gradual improvement, the completion of 
parts giving us no pleasure, we strain at the whole 
result ; we wish to have it done, and in our anxiety 
to have it off our hands, say it will do, and lose 
the benefit of all our labour by grudging a little 
pains, and not commanding a little patience. In 
a day or two, suppose, a copy of a fine Titian 
would be as complete as we could make it : the 
prospect of this so enchants us that we skip the 
intermediate days, see no great use in going on 
with it, fancy that we may spoil it, and in order 
to have the job done, take it home with us, when 
we immediately see our error, and spend the rest 
of our lives in repenting that we did not finish it 
properly at the time. We see the whole of nature 
or of a picture at once ; we only do a part : Hinc 
dice lachrymal . A French artist, on the contrary, 
has none of this uneasy, anxious feeling ; of .this 
desire to grasp the whole of his subject, and anti- 
cipate his good fortune at a blow ; of this massing 
and concentrating principle. He takes the thing 
more easily and rationally. Suppose he under- 
takes to copy a picture, he looks at it and copies 
it bit by bit. He does not set off headlong with- 
out knowing where he is going, or plunge into all 
sorts of difficulties and absurdities, from im- 



148 ON MEANS AND ENDS. 

patience to begin and thinking that " no sooner 
said than done," but takes time to consider, lays 
his plans, gets in his outline and his distances, and 
lays a foundation before he attempts a super- 
structure which he may have to pull to pieces 
again. He looks before he leaps, which is contrary 
to the true blindfold English principle; and I 
should think that we had invented this proverb 
from seeing so many fatal examples of the neglect 
of it. He does not make the picture all black or 
all white, because one part of it is so, and because 
he cannot alter an idea he has once got into his 
head and must always run into extremes, but 
varies from green to red, from orange tawney to 
yellow, from grey to brown, according as they 
vary in the original : he sees no inconsistency or 
forfeiture of a principle in this, but a great deal 
of right reason, and indeed an absolute necessity 
if he wishes to succeed in what he is about. This 
is the last thing an Englishman thinks of: he 
only wants to have his own way, though it ends in 
defeat and ruin : he sets about a thing which he 
has little prospect of accomplishing, and if he 
finds he can do it, gives it over and leaves the 
matter short of success, which is too agreeable an 
idea for him to indulge in. The French artist 
proceeds bit by bit. He takes one part, a hand, 
a piece of drapery, a part of the back-ground, and 



ON MEANS AND ENDS. 149 

finishes it carefully, then another, and so on to 
the end. He does not, from a childish impatience, 
when he is near the conclusion, destroy the effect 
of the whole by leaving some one part eminently 
defective, nor fly from what he is about to some- 
thing else that catches his eye, neglecting the one 
and spoiling the other. He is constrained by 
mastery, by the mastery of common sense and 
pleasurable feeling. He is in no hurry to finish, 
for he has a satisfaction in the work, and touches 
and retouches, perhaps a single head, day after 
day and week after week, without repining, un- 
easiness, or apparent progress. The very light- 
ness and indifference of his feelings renders 
him patient and laborious : an Englishman, what- 
ever he is about or undertakes, is as if he 
was carrying a heavy load that oppresses both 
his body and mind, and which he is anxious to 
throw down. A Frenchman's hopes or fears are 
not excited to that pitch of intolerable agony 
that compels him, in mere compassion to himself, 
to bring the question to a speedy issue, even to 
the loss of his object ; he is calm, easy, and in- 
different, and can take his time and make the 
most of his advantages with impunity. Pleased 
with himself, he is pleased with whatever occupies 
his attention nearly alike. It is the same to him 
whether he paints an angel or a joint-stool ; it is 



150 ON MEANS AND ENDS. 

the same to him whether it is landscape or history ; 
it is he who paints it, that is sufficient. Nothing 
puts him out of conceit with his work, for nothing 
puts him out of conceit with himself. This self- 
complacency produces admirable patience and do- 
cility in certain particulars, besides charity and 
toleration towards others. I remember a ludicrous 
instance of this deliberate process, in a young 
French artistw ho was copying the ' Titian's Mis- 
tress ' in the Louvre, some twenty years ago. After 
getting it in chalk-lines, one would think he would 
have been attracted to the face, that heaven of 
beauty which makes a sunshine in the shady place, 
or to some part of the poetry of the picture ; in- 
stead of which he began to finish a square he had 
marked out in the right-hand corner of the picture. 
He set to work like a cabinet-maker or an engraver, 
and seemed to have no sympathy with the soul of 
the picture. Indeed, to a Frenchman there is no 
distinction between the great and the little, the 
pleasurable and the painful ; the utmost he arrives 
at a conception of is the indifferent and the light. 
Another young man, at the time I speak of, was 
for eleven weeks (I think it was) daily employed 
in making a black-lead pencil drawing of a small 
Leonardo ; he sat cross-legged on a rail to do it, 
kept his hat on, rose up, went to the fire to warm 
himself, talked constantly of the excellence of the 



ON MEANS AND ENDS. 151 

different masters — Titian for colour, Kaphael for 
expression, Poussin for composition — all being 
alike to him provided there was a word to express 
it, for all he thought about was his own harangue ; 
and, having consulted some friend on his progress, 
he returned to 'perfeetionate,' as he called it, his 
copy. This would drive an Englishman mad or 
stupid. The perseverance and the indifference, 
the labour without impulse, the attention to the 
parts in succession, and disregard of the whole to- 
gether, are to him absolutely inconceivable. A 
Frenchman only exists in his present sensations, 
and provided he is left free to these as they arise, 
he cares about nothing farther, looking neither 
backward nor forward. With all this affectation 
and artifice, there is on this account a kind of 
simplicity and nature about them after all. They 
lend themselves to the impression before them with 
good humour and good will, making it neither 
better nor worse than it is. The English overdo 
or underdo everything, and are either drunk or in 
despair. I do not speak of all Frenchmen or of 
all Englishmen, but of the most characteristic 
specimens of each class. The extreme slowness 
and methodical regularity of the French has arisen 
out of this indifference and even frivolity (their 
usually supposed natural character), for owing to 
it their laborious minuteness costs them nothing ; 



152 ON MEANS AND ENDS. 

they have no strong impulses or ardent longings 
that urge thern to the violation of rules, or hurry 
them away with a subject and with the interest 
"belonging to it. Every thing is matter of calcu- 
lation, and measured beforehand in order to assist 
their fluttering and their feebleness. When they 
get beyond the literal and the formal, and attempt 
the impressive and the grand, as in David's and 
Girardot's pictures, defend us from sublimity 
heaped on insipidity and petit-maitreism ! You 
see a Frenchman in the Louvre copying the 
finest pictures, standing on one leg, with his hat 
on ; or after copying a Raphael, thinking David 
much finer, more truly one of themselves, more a 
combination of the Greek sculptor and the French 
posture-master. Even if a French artist fails, he 
is not disconcerted ; there is something else he 
excels in : if he cannot paint, he can dance ! If 
an Englishman, save the mark ! fails in any- 
thing, he thinks he can do nothing ; enraged at 
the mention of his ability to do any thing else, and 
at any consolation offered to him, he banishes all 
other thought but of his disappointment, and dis- 
carding hope from his breast, neither eats nor 
sleeps (it is well if he does not cut his throat), will 
not attend to any other thing in which he before 
took an interest and pride, and is in despair till 
he recovers his good opinion of himself in the 



ON MEANS AND ENDS. 153 

point in which he has been disgraced, though, 
from his very anxiety and disorder of mind, he 
is incapacitated from applying to the only means of 
doing so, as much as if he were drunk with liquor 
instead of with pride and passion. The character I 
have here drawn of an Englishman I am clear 
about, for it is the character of myself, and, I am 
sorry to add, no exaggerated one. As my object 
is to paint the varieties of human nature, and, as 
I can have it best from myself, I will confess a 
weakness. I lately tried to copy a Titian (after 
many years' want of practice), in order to give a 
friend in England some idea of the picture. I 
floundered on for several days, but failed, as 
might be expected. My sky became overcast. 
Every thing seemed of the colour of the paint I 
used. Nature was one great daub. I had no 
feeling left but a sense of want of power, and of 
an abortive struggle to do what I could not do. 
I was ashamed of being seen to look at the picture 
with admiration, as if I had no right to do so. I 
was ashamed even to have written or spoken about 
the picture, or about art at all : it seemed a piece 
of presumption or affectation in me, whose whole 
notions and refinements on the subject ended in 
an inexcusable daub. Whv did I think of at- 
tempting such a thing heedlessly, of exposing my 
presumption and incapacity? It was blotting from 



154 ON MEANS AND ENDS. 

my memory, covering with a dark veil, all that I 
remembered of those pictures formerly, my hopes 
when young, my regrets since ; — it was wresting 
from me one of the consolations of my life and of 
my declining years. I was even afraid to walk 
out by the barrier of Neuilly, or to recall to memory 
that I had ever seen the picture ; all was turned 
to bitterness and gall : to feel any thing but a 
sense of my own helplessness and absurdity seemed 
a want of sincerity, a mockery and a piece of in- 
justice. The only comfort I had was in the excess 
of pain I felt : this was at least some distinction : 
I was not insensible on that side. No Frenchman, 
I thought, would regret the not copying a Titian 
so much as I did, or so far show the same value 
for it. Besides, I had copied this identical picture 
very well formerly. If ever I got out of this 
scrape, I had received a lesson, at least, not to run 
the same risk of gratuitous vexation again, or even 
to attempt what was uncertain and unnecessary. 

It is the same in love and in literature. A man 
makes love without thinking of the chances of 
success, his own disabilities, or the character of 
his mistress ; that is, without connecting means 
with ends, and consulting only his own will and 
passion. The author sets about writing history, 
with the full intention of rendering all documents, 
dates, and facts secondaiy to his own opinion and 



ON MEANS AND ENDS. 155 

will. In business it is not altogether the same ; 
for interest acts obviously as a counterpoise to 
caprice and will, and is the moving principle ; nor 
is it so in war, for then the spirit of contradiction 
does everything, and an Englishman will go to the 
devil rather than give up to any odds. Courage is 
pure will without regard to consequences, and this 
the English have in perfection. Again, poetry is 
our element, for the essence of poetry is will and 
passion. The French poetry is detail and ver- 
biage. I have thus shown why the English fail, 
as a people, in the Fine Arts, namely, because 
with them the end absorbs the means. I have 
mentioned Barry as an individual instance. No 
man spoke or wrote with more gusto about paint- 
ing, and yet no one painted with less. His pictures 
were dry and coarse, and wanted all that his 
description of those of others contained. For in- 
stance, he speaks of the dull, dead, watery look 
in the Medusa's head of Leonardo, which conveys 
a perfect idea of it : if he had copied it, you 
would never have suspected anything of the kind. 
Again, he has, I believe, somewhere spoken of the 
uneasy effect of the tucker of the ' Titian's Mistress,' 
bursting with the full treasures it contains. What 
a daub he would have made of it ! He is like a 
person admiring the grace of a fine rope-dancer ; 
placed on the rope himself his head turns, and he 



156 ON MEANS AND ENDS. 

falls ; or like a man admiring line horsemanship ; 
set him upon a horse , and he tumbles over on the 
other side. Why was this ? His mind was essen- 
tially ardent and discursive, not sensitive or observ- 
ing ; and though the immediate object acted as a 
stimulus to his imagination, it was only as it does 
to a poet's, that is, as a link in the chain of associa- 
tion, as suggesting other strong feelings and ideas, 
and not for its intrinsic beauty or hidden details. 
He had not the painter's eye though he had the 
painter's knowledge. There is as great a differ- 
ence in this respect as between the telescope and 
microscope. People in general see objects only to 
distinguish them in practice and byname ; to know 
that a hat is a hat, that a chair is not a table, that 
John is not William ; and there are painters 
{particularly of history) in England who look no 
farther. They cannot finish any thing, or go over 
-a head twice ; the first view is all they would arrive 
at ; nor can they reduce their impressions to their 
component parts without losing the spirit. The 
effect of this is grossness and want of force ; for in 
reality the component parts cannot be separated 
from the whole. Such people have no pleasure in 
the exercise of their art as such : it is all to asto- 
nish or to get money that they follow it ; or if they 
are thrown out of it, they regret it only as a bank- 
rupt does a business which was a livelihood to him. 



ON MEANS AND ENDS. 157 

Barry did not live like Titian in the taste of co- 
lours ; they were not a pabulum to his sense ; he 
did not hold green, blue, red, and yellow as the 
precious darlings of his eye. They did not there- 
fore sink into his mind, or nourish and enrich it 
with the sense of beauty, though he knew enough of 
them to furnish hints and topics of discourse. If he 
had had the most beautiful object in nature before 
him in his painting-room in the Adelphi, he would 
have neglected it, after a moment's burst of admi- 
ration, to talk of his last composition, or to scrawl 
some new and vast design. Art was nothing to 
him, or if anything, merely a stalking-horse to 
his ambition and display of intellectual power in 
general, and therefore he neglected it to daub huge 
allegories, or cabal with the Academy, where the 
violence of his will or the extent of his views found 
ample scope. As a painter he was valuable merely 
as a draughtsman, in that part of the art which 
may be reduced to lines and precepts, or positive 
measurement. There is neither colour, nor ex- 
pression, nor delicacy, nor beauty, in his works. 
1827. 



ESSAY IX. 

MATTER AND MANNER. 



Nothing can frequently be more striking than the 
difference of style or manner, where the matter re- 
mains the same, as in paraphrases and translations. 
The most remarkable example which occurs to us 
is in the beginning of the 'Flower and Leaf,' by 
Chaucer, and in the modernization of the same 
passage by Dryden. We shall give an extract 
from both, that the reader may judge for himself. 
The original runs thus : — 

And I that all this pleasaunt sight see, 
Though sodainly I felt so sweet an aire 
Of the eglentere, that certainely 
There is no herte I deme in such dispaire, 
Ne with thoughts froward and contraire 
So overlaid, but it should soone haye bote, 
If it had once felt this savour sote. 

And as I stood and cast aside mine eie, 
I was ware of the fairest medler tree 
That ever yet in all my life I see, 



MATTER AND MANNER. 159 

As full of blossomes as it might be, 
Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile 
Fro' bough to bough, and as him list he eet 
Here and there of buds and floures sweet. 

And to the herber side was joyning 

This faire tree of which I have you told, 

And at the last the bird began to sing, 

When he had eaten what he eat wold, 

So passing sweetly, that by manifold 

It was more pleasaunt than I could devise ; 

And when his song was ended in this wise, 

The nightingale with so merry a note 

Answered him, that all the wood rang 

So sodainly, that as it were a sote, 

I stood astonied, so was I with the sang 

Thorow ravished, that till late and lang, 

I ne wist in what place I was, ne where, 

And aye me thought she sang even by mine ear. 

"Wherefore I waited about busily 
On every side, if I her might see, 
And at the last I gan full well espie 
Where she sat in a fresh green laurer tree, 
On the further side even right by me, 
That gave so passing a delicious smell, 1 
According to the eglentere full welL 

Whereof I had so inly great pleasure ; 
That as me thought I surely ravished was \ 
Into Paradise, where my desire 
Was for to be and no further passe, 
As for that day, and on the sote grasse 
V I sat me downe, for as for mine intent, 
The birdes' song was more convenient, 



160 MATTER AND MANNER. 

And more pleasaunt to me by manifold, 
Than meat or drinke, or any other thing, 
Thereto the herber was so fresh and cold, 
The wholesome savours eke so comforting, 
That as I deemed, with the beginning 
Of the world, was never seene or then 
So pleasaunt a ground of none earthly man. 

And as I sat the birdes harkening thus, 
Methought that I heard voices sodainly, 
The most sweetest and most delicious 
That ever any wight I trow truly 
Heard in their life ; for the harmony 
And sweet accord was in so good musike, 
That the voice to angels most was like." 

In this passage the poet has let loose the very 
soul of pleasure. There is a spirit of enjoyment in 
it, of which there seems no end. It is the intense 
delight which accompanies the description of every 
object, the fund of natural sensibility it displays, 
which constitutes its whole essence and beauty. 
Now this is shown chiefly in the manner in which 
the different objects are anticipated, and the eager 
welcome which is given to them ; in his repeating 
and varying the circumstances with a restless de" 
light; in his quitting the subject for a moment, 
and then returning to it again, as if he could never 
have his fill of enjoyment. There is little of this 
in Dryden's paraphrase. The same ideas are intro- 
duced, but not in the same manner, nor with the 



MATTER AND MANNER. 161 

same spirit. The imagination of the poet is not 
borne along with the tide of pleasure — the verse is 
not poured out, like the natural strains it describes, 
from pure delight, but according to rule and mea- 
sure. Instead of being absorbed in his subject, he 
is dissatisfied with it, tries to give an air of dignity 
to it by factitious ornaments, to amuse the reader 
by ingenious allusions, and divert his attention from 
the progress of the story by the artifices of the 
style. 

" The painted birds, companions of the spring, 
Hopping from spray to spray, were heard to sing ; 
Both eyes and ears received a like delight, 
Enchanting music, and a charming sight : 
On Philomel I fixed my whole desire, 
And listen'd for the queen of all the quire. 
Fain would I hear her heavenly voice to sing, 
And wanted yet an omen to the spring. 
Thus as I mus'd, I cast aside my eye 
And saw a medlar tree was planted nigh : 
The spreading branches made a goodly show, 
And full of opening blooms was every bough : 
A goldfinch there I saw with gaudy pride 
Of painted plumes, that hopped from side to side, 
Still pecking as she pass'd ; and still she drew 
The sweets from every flower, and suck'd the dew ; 
Suffic'd at length, she warbled in her throat, 
And tun'd her voice to many a merry note, 
But indistinct, and neither sweet nor clear, 
Yet such as sooth'd my soul, and pleas'd my ear. 
Her short performance was no sooner tried, 

G 



162 MATTER AND MANNER. 

When she I sought, the nightingale, replied : 

So sweet, so shrill, so variously she sung, 

That the grove echo'd, and the vallies rung : 

And I so ravish'd with her heavenly note, 

I stood intranc'd, and had no room for thought ; 

But all o'erpower'd with ecstacy of bliss, 

Was in a pleasing dream of paradise : 

At length I wak'd ; and looking round the bower, 

Search'd every tree, and pry'd on every flower, 

If any where by chance I might espy 

The rural poet of the melody : 

For still methought she sung not far away ; 

At last I found her on a laurel spray. 

Close by my side she sat, and fair in sight 

Full in a line, against her opposite ; 

Where stood with eglantine the lauret twin'd ; 

And both their native sweets were well eonjoin'd, 

On the green bank I sat, and listen'd long ; 

(Sitting was more convenient for the song) 

Nor till her lay was ended could I move, 

But wish'd to dwell for ever in the grove. 

Only methought the time too swiftly passed, 

And every note I fear'd would be the last. 

My sight, and smell, and hearing were employ'd, 

And all three senses in full gust enjoy'd. 

And what alone did all the rest surpass, 

The sweet possession of the fairy place ; 

Single, and conscious to myself alone 

Of pleasures to th' excluded world unknown : 

Pleasures which no where else were to be found, 

And all Elysium in a spot of ground. 

Thus while I sat, intent to see and hear, 

And drew perfumes of more than vital air, 



MATTER AND MANNER. Ida 



All suddenly I heard th' approaching sound 
Of yocal music, on th' enchanted ground : 
An host of saints it seem'd, so full the quire, 
As if the blest above did all conspire 
To join their voices, and neglect the lyre." 



} 



Compared with Chaucer, Dryden, and the rest 
of that school were merely verbal poets. They had 
a great deal of wit, sense, and fancy ; they only 
wanted truth and depth of feeling. But I shall 
have to say more on this subject, when I come to 
consider the old question which I have got marked 
down in my list, whether Pope was a Poet. 

Lord Chesterfield's character of the Duke of Marl- 
borough, is a good illustration of his general theory : 
— He says, " Of all the men I ever knew in my 
life (and I knew him extremely well) the late Duke 
of Marlborough possessed the graces in the highest 
degree, not to say engrossed them ; for I will ven- 
ture (contrary to the custom of profound historians, 
who always assign deep causes for great events) to 
ascribe the better half of the Duke of Marlborough's 
greatness and riches to those graces. He was emi- 
nently illiterate : wrote bad English, and spelt it 
worse. He had no share of what is commonly 
called parts : that is, no brightness, nothing shin- 
ing in his genius. He had most undoubtedly an 
excellent good plain understanding with sound 
judgment. But these alone would probably have 



164 MATTER AND MANNER. 

raised him but something higher than they found 
him, which was page to King James II's Queen. 
There the graces protected and promoted him ; for 
while he was Ensign of the Guards, the Duchess 
of Cleveland, then favourite mistress of Charles II, 
struck by these very graces, gave him five thousand 
pounds ; with which he immediately bought an 
annuity of five hundred pounds a year, which was 
the foundation of his subsequent fortune. His 
figure was beautiful, but his manner was irresist- 
ible by either man or woman. It was by this 
engaging, graceful manner, that he was enabled 
during all his wars to connect the various and jar- 
ring powers of the grand alliance, and to carry 
them on to the main object of the war, notwith- 
standing their private and separate views, jealou- 
sies, and wrong headedness. Whatever court he 
went to (and he was often obliged to go himself to 
some resty and refractory ones) he as constantly 
prevailed, and brought them into his measures." 

Grace in women has often more effect than 
beauty. We sometimes see a certain fine self- 
possession, an habitual voluptuousness of charac- 
ter, which reposes on its own sensations, and 
derives pleasure from all around it, that is more 
irresistible than any other attraction. There is an 
air of languid enjoyment in such persons, " in their 
eyes, in their arms, and then hands, and their 



MATTER AND MANNER. 165 

face," which robs us of ourselves, and draws us by 
a secret sympathy towards them. Their minds 
are a shrine where pleasure reposes. Their smile 
diffuses a sensation like the breath of spring. 
Petrarch's description of Laura answers exactly 
to this character, which is indeed the Italian cha- 
racter. Titian's pictures are full of it : they seem 
sustained by sentiment, or as if the persons whom 
he painted sat to music. There is one in the 
Louvre (or there was) which had the most of this 
expression I ever remember. It did not look 
downward ; "it looked forward beyond this world." 
It w r as a look that never passed away, but remained 
unalterable as the deep sentiment which gave birth 
to it. It is the same constitutional character 
(together with infinite activity of mind) which has 
enabled the greatest man in modern history to bear 
his reverses of fortune with gay magnanimity, and 
to submit to the loss of the empire of the world 
with as little discomposure as if he had been play- 
ing a game at chess. 

After all, I would not be understood to say 
that manner is everything.* Nor would I put 

* Sheer impudence answers almost the same purpose. — 
" Those impenetrable whiskers have confronted flames.'* 
Many persons, by looking big and talking loud, make their 
way through the world without any one good quality. I 
iiave here said nothing of mere personal qualifications, 
which are another set-off against sterling merit. Fielding 



166 MATTER AND <\LANNEE. 

Euclid or Sir Isaac Newton on a level with the 
first petit-maitre we might happen to meet. I 
consider ' iEsop's Fables' to have been a greater 
work of genius than Fontaine's translation of 
them ; though I am not sure that I should not 
prefer Fontaine, for his style only, to Gay, who 
has shown a great deal of original invention. 



was of opinion, that " the more solid pretensions of virtue 
and understanding vanish before perfect beauty/' — " A cer- 
tain lady of a manor," (says Don Quixote in defence of 
his attachment to Duhinea, which however was quite of the 
Platonic kind), " had cast the eyes of affection on a certain 
squat, brawny lay-brother of a neighbouring monastery, to 
whom she was lavish of her favours. The head of the 
order remonstrated with her on this preference shown to 
one whom he represented as a very low, ignorant fellow, 
and set forth the superior pretensions of himself, and his 
more learned brethren. The lady haying heard him to an 
end, made answer ;— All that you have said may be very 
true ; but know that in those points which I admire, Bro- 
ther Chrysostom is as great a philosopher, nay greater than 
Aristotle himself ! "—So the Wife of Bath .— 

" To church was mine husband borne on the morrow 
With neighbours that for him madden sorrow, 
And Jenkin our clerk was one of tho : 
As help me Grod, when that I saw him go 
After the bier, methought he had a pair 
Of legs and feet, so clean and fair, 
That all my heart I gave unto his hold." 
" All which, though we most potently believe, yet we- 
hold it not honesty to have it thus set down." 



MATTER AND MANNER. 167 

The elegant manners of people of fashion have 
been objected to me to show the frivolity of exter- 
nal accomplishments, and the facility with which 
they are acquired. As to the last point, I demur. 
There are no class of people who lead so laborious 
a life, or who take more pains to cultivate their 
minds as well as persons, than people of fashion. 
A young lady of quality who has to devote so many 
hours a day to music, so many to dancing, so many 
to drawing, so many to French, Italian, &c, cer- 
tainly does not pass her time in idleness ; and 
these accomplishments are afterwards called into 
action by every kind of external or mental stimulus, 
by the excitements of pleasure, vanity, and inter- 
est. A Ministerial or Opposition Lord goes through 
more drudgery than half a dozen literary hacks .; 
nor does a reviewer by profession read half the 
same number of publications as a modern fine lady 
is obliged to labour through. I confess, how- 
ever, I am not a competent judge of the degree of 
elegance or refinement implied in the general tone 
X)i fashionable manners. The successful experi- 
ment made by ' Peregrine Pickle,' in introducing 
his strolling mistress into genteel company, does 
not redound greatly to their credit. 
1815. 



ESSAY X. 
ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 



" Servetur ad imum 

Qualis ab inceptu processerit, et sibi constet." 

Many people boast of being masters in their own 
house. I pretend to be master of my own mind. 
I should be sorry to have an ejectment served upon 
me for any notions I may choose to entertain there. 
Within that little circle I would fain be an abso- 
lute monarch. I do not profess the spirit of mar- 
tyrdom ; I have no ambition to march to the stake 
or up to a mashed battery, in defence of an hypo- 
thesis : I do not court the rack : I do not wish to 
be flayed alive for affirming that two and two make 
four, or any other intricate proposition : I am shy 
of bodily pains and penalties, which some are fond 
of, imprisonment, fine, banishment, confiscation of 
goods : but if I do not prefer the independence of 
my mind to that of my hody, I at least prefer it to 
everything else, I would avoid the arm of power, 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 169 

as I would escape from the fangs of a wild beast : 
but as to the opinion of the world, I see nothing 
formidable in it. " It is the eye of childhood that 
fears a painted devil." I am not to be brow-beat 
or wheedled out of any of my settled convictions. 
Opinion to opinion, I will face any man. Preju- 
dice, fashion, the cant of the moment, go for 
nothing ; and as for the reason of the thing, it can 
only be supposed to rest with me or another, in 
proportion to the pains we have taken to ascertain 
it. Where the pursuit of truth has been the habi- 
tual study of any man's life, the love of truth will 
be his ruling passion. " Where the treasure is, 
there the heart is also." Every one is most tena- 
cious of that to which he owes his distinction from 
others. Kings love power, misers gold, women 
flattery, poets reputation — and philosophers truth, 
when they can find it. They are right in cherish- 
ing the only privilege they inherit. If " to be wise 
were to be obstinate," I might set up for as great 
a philosopher as the best of them ; for some of my 
conclusions are as fixed and as incorrigible to proof 
as need be. I am attached to them hi consequence 
of the pains, and anxiety, and the waste of time 
they have cost me. In fact, I should not well 
know what to do without them at this time of day ; 
nor how to get others to supply their place. I 
would quarrel with the best friend I have sooner 



170 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

than acknowledge the absolute right of the Bour- 
bons. I see Mr seldomer than I did, be- 
cause I cannot agree with him about the ' Catalogue 
Eaisonne.' I remember once saying to this gen- 
tleman, a great while ago, that I did not seem to 
have altered any of my ideas since I was sixteen 
years old. "Why then," said he, "you are no 
wiser now than you were then ! " I might make 
the same confession, and the same retort would 
apply still. Coleridge used to tell me, that this 
pertinacity was owing to a want of sympathy with 
others. What he calls sympathising with others is 
their admiring him, and it must be admitted that 
he varies his battery pretty often, in order to accom- 
modate himself to this sort of mutual understand- 
ing. But I do not agree in what he says of me. 
On the other hand, I think that it is my sympa- 
thising beforehand with the different views and 
feelings that may be entertained on a subject, that 
prevents me retracting my judgment, and flinging 
myself into the contrary extreme afterwards. If 
you proscribe all opinion opposite to your own, and 
impertinently exclude all the evidence that does 
not make for you, it stares you in the face with 
double force when it breaks in unexpectedly upon 
you, or if at any subsequent period it happens to 
suit your interest or convenience to listen to objec- 
tions which vanity or prudence had hitherto over- 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 171 

looked. But if you are aware from the first 
suggestion of a subject, either by subtlety or tact 
or close attention, of the full force of what others 
possibly feel and think of it, you are not exposed to 
the same vacillation of opinion. The number of 
grains and scruples, of doubts and difficulties, 
thrown into the scale while the balance is yet un- 
decided, add to the weight and steadiness of the 
determination. He who anticipates his opponent's 
arguments, confirms while he corrects his own 
reasonings. When a question has been carefully 
examined in all its bearings, and a principle is 
once established, it is not liable to be overthrown 
by any new facts which have been arbitrarily and 
petulantly set aside, nor by every wind of idle 
doctrine rushing into the interstices of a hollow 
speculation, shattering it in pieces, and leaving it 
a mockery and a bye-word ; like those tall, gawky, 
staring, pyramidal erections which are seen scat- 
tered over different parts of the country, and are 
called the Follies of different gentlemen ! A man 
may be confident in maintaining a side, as he has 
been cautious in choosing it. If after making up 
his mind strongly in one way, to the best of his 
capacity and judgment, he feels himself inclined to 
a very violent revulsion of sentiment, he may gene- 
rally rest assured that the change is in himself and 
his motives, not in the reason of things. 



173 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

I cannot say that, from my own experience, I 
have found that the persons most remarkable for 
sudden and violent changes of principle have been 
cast in the softest or most susceptible mould. All 
their notions have been exclusive, bigoted, and 
intolerant. Their want of consistency and mode- 
ration has been in exact proportion to their want of 
candour and comprehensiveness of mind. Instead 
of being the creatures of sympathy, open to con- 
viction, unwilling to give offence by the smallest 
difference of sentiment, they have (for the most 
part) been made up of mere antipathies — a very 
repulsive sort of personages — at odds with them- 
selves, and with everybody else. The slendemess 
of their pretensions to philosophical inquiry has 
been accompanied with the most presumptuous 
dogmatism. They have been persons of that nar- 
rowness of view and headstrong self-sufficiency of 
purpose, that they could see only one side of a 
question at a time, and whichever they pleased. 
There is a story somewhere in "Don Quixote,' of 
two champions coming to a shield hung up against 
a tree with an inscription written on each side of 
it. Each of them maintained, that the words were 
what was written on the side next him, and never 
dreamt, till the fray was over, that they might be 
different on the opposite side of the shield. It 
would have been a little more extraordinary if tho 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 173 

combatants had changed sides in the heat of the 
scuffle, and stoutly denied that there were any such 
words on the opposite side as they had before been 
bent on sacrificing their lives to prove were the 
only ones it contained. Yet such is the very situa- 
tion of some of our modern polemics. They have 
been of all sides of the question, and yet they can- 
not conceive how an honest man can be of any 
but one — that which they hold at present. It 
seems that they are afraid to look their old opinions 
in the face, lest they should be fascinated by them 
once more. They banish all doubts of their own 
sincerity by inveighing against the motives of their 
antagonists. There is no salvation out of the pale 
of their strange inconsistency. They reduce com- 
mon sense and probity to the straitest possible 
limits — the breasts of themselves and their pa- 
trons. They are like people out at sea on a very 
narrow plank, who try to push every body else off. 
Is it that they have so little faith in the cause to 
which they have become such staunch converts, as 
to suppose that, should they allow a grain of sense 
to their old allies and new antagonists, they will 
have more than they? Is it that they have so 
little consciousness of their own disinterestedness, 
that they feel if they allow a particle of honesty to 
those who now differ with them, they will have 
more than they ? Those opinions must needs be 



174 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

of a very fragile texture which will not stand the 
shock of the least acknowledged opposition, and 
which lay claim to respectability by stigmatizing 
all who do not hold them as " sots, and knaves, 
and cowards." There is a want of well-balanced 
feeling in every such instance of extravagant versa- 
tility ; a something crude, imripe, and harsh, that 
does not hit a judicious palate, but sets the teeth 
on edge to think of. "I had rather hear my 
mother's cat mew, or a wheel grate on the axle- 
tree, than one of these same metre-ballad-mongers" 
chaunt his incondite retrograde lays without rhyme 
and without reason. 

The principles and professions change : the man 
remains the same. There is the same spirit at the 
bottom of all this pragmatical fickleness and viru- 
lence, whether it runs into one extreme or another : 
— to wit, a confinement of view, a jealousy of others, 
an impatience of contradiction, a want of liberality 
in construing the motives of others, either from 
monkish pedantry, or a conceited overweening 
reference of everything to our own fancies and 
feelings. There is something to be said, indeed, 
for the nature of the political machinery, for the 
whirling motion of the revolutionary wheel which 
has of late wrenched men's understandings almost 
asunder, and " amazed the very faculties of eyes 
and ears ; " but still this is hardly a sufficient rea- 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 175 

son, why the adept in the old as well as the new 
school' should take such a prodigious latitude him- 
self, while at the same time he makes so little 
allowance for others. His whole creed need not 
be turned topsy-turvy, from the top to the bottom, 
even in times like these. He need not, in the 
rage of party spirit, discard the proper attributes of 
humanity, the common dictates of reason. He 
need not outrage every former feeling, nor trample 
on every customary decency, in his zeal for reform, 
or in his greater zeal against it. If his mind, like 
his body, has undergone a total change of essence, 
and purged off the taint of all its early opinions, 
he need not carry about with him, or be haunted in 
the persons of others with, the phantoms of his 
altered principles to loath and execrate them. He 
need not (as it were) pass an act of attainder on 
all his thoughts, hopes, wishes, from youth upwards, 
to offer them at the shrine of matured servility : 
he need not become one vile antithesis, a living 
and ignominious satire on himself. 

A gentleman went to live, some ye^rs ago, in a 
remote part of the country, and as he did not wish 
to affect singularity he used to have two candles on 
his table of an evening. A romantic acquaintance 
of his in the neighbourhood, smit with the love of 
simplicity and equality, used to come in, and with- 
out ceremony snuff one of them out, saying, it was 



176 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

a shame to indulge in such extravagance, while 
many poor cottagers had not even a rush-light to 
see to do their evening's work by. This might be 
about the year 1802, and was passed over as among 
the ordinary occurrences of the day. In 1816 (oh! 
fearful lapse of time, pregnant with strange muta- 
bility), the same enthusiastic lover of economy, and 
hater of luxury, asked his thoughtless friend to 
dine with him in company with a certain lord, and 
to lend him his man servant to wait at table ; and 
just before they were sitting down to dinner, he 
heard him say to the servant in a sonorous whisper 
— " and be sure you don't forget to have six candles 
on the table ! " Extremes meet. The event here 
was as true to itself as the oscillation of the pendu- 
lum. My informant, who understands moral equa- 
tions, had looked for this reaction, and noted it 
down as characteristic. The impertinence in the 
first instance was the cue to the ostentatious ser- 
vility in the second. The one was the fulfilment 
of the other, like the type and anti-type of a pro- 
phecy. No — the keeping of the character at the 
end of fourteen years was as unique as the keeping 
of the thought to the end of the fourteen lines of a 
Sonnet! — Would it sound strange if I were to 
whisper it in the reader's ear, that it was the same 
person who was thus anxious to see six candles on 
the table to receive a lord, who once (in ages past) 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION- 177 

said to me, that " he saw nothing to admire in the 
eloquence of such men as Mansfield and Chatham ; 
and what did it all end in, but their being made 
Lords ?" It is better to be a lord than a lacquey 
to a lord ! So we see that the swelling pride and 
preposterous self-opinion which exalts itself above 
the mightiest, looking down upon, and braving the 
boasted pretensions of the highest rank and the 
most brilliant talents as nothing, compared with 
its own conscious powers and silent unmoved self- 
respect, grovels and licks the dust before titled 
wealth, like a lacquered slave, the moment it can 
get wages and a livery ! Would Milton or Marvel 
have done thus ? 

Mr Coleridge, indeed, sets down this outrageous 
want of keeping to an excess of sympathy, and 
there is, after all, some truth in his suggestion. 
There is a craving after the approbation and con- 
currence of others natural to the mind of man. It 
is difficult to sustain the weight of an opinion singly 
for any length of way. The intellect languishes 
without cordial encouragement and support. It 
exhausts both strength and patience to be always 
striving against the stream. Contra audentior ito 
— is the motto but of few. Public opinion is 
always pressing upon the mind, and, like the air 
we breathe, acts unseen, unfelt. It supplies the 
living current of our thoughts, and infects without 



178 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

our knowledge. It taints the blood, and is taken 
into the smallest pores. The most sanguine con- 
stitutions are, perhaps, the most exposed to its 
influence. But public opinion has its source in 
power, in popular prejudice, and is not always in 
accord with right reason, or a high and abstracted 
imagination. Which path to follow where the two 
roads part? The heroic and romantic resolution 
prevails at first in high and heroic tempers. The? 
think to scale the heights of truth and virtue at 
once with him "whose genius had angelic wings, 
and fed on manna," — but after a time find them- 
selves baffled, toiling on in an uphill road, without 
friends, in a cold neighbourhood, "without aid or 
prospect of success. The poet 

" Like a worm goes by the way. " 

He hears murmurs loud or suppressed, meets blank 
looks or scowling faces, is exposed to the pelting of 
the pitiless press, and is stunned by the shout of 
the mob, that gather round him to see what sort of 
a creature a poet and a philosopher is. What is 
there to make him proof against all this ? A 
strength of understanding steeled against tempta- 
tion, and a dear love of truth that smiles opinion 
to scorn. These he perhaps has not. A lord 
passes in his coach. Might he not get up. and 
ride out of the reach of the rabble-rout ? He is 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 179 

invited to stop dinner. If he stays he might insi- 
nuate some wholesome truths. He drinks in rank 
poison — flattery ! He recites some verses to the 
ladies, who smile delicious praise, and thank him 
through their tears. The master of the house sug- 
gests a happy allusion in the turn of an expression. 
" There's sympathy." This is better than the 
company he lately left. Pictures, statues meet his 
raptured eye. Our Ulysses finds himself in the 
gardens of Alcinous : our truant is fairly caught. 
He wanders through enchanted ground. Groves, 
classic groves nod unto him, and he hears u ances- 
tral voices" hailing him as brother-bard ! He 
sleeps, dreams, and wakes, cured of his thriftless 
prejudices and morose philanthropy. He likes 
this courtly and popular sympathy better. "He 
looks up with awe to kings ; with honour to nobi- 
lity; with reverence to magistrates," &c. He no 
longer breathes the- air of heaven and his own 
thoughts, but is steeped in that of palaces and 
courts, and finds it agree better with his constitu- 
tional temperament. Oh ! how sympathy alters a 
man from what he was ! 

* I've heard of hearts unkind, 
Kind deeds with cold returning ; 
Alas ! the gratitude of man 
Has oftener set me mourning." 

A spirit of contradiction, a wish to monopolise 



180 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

all wisdom, will not account for uniform consis- 
tency, for it is sure to defeat and turn against 
itself. It is " every thing by turns, and nothing 
long." It is warped and crooked. It cannot bear 
the least opposition, and sooner than acquiesce in 
what others approve it will change sides in a day. 
It is offended at eveiy resistance to its captious, 
domineering humour, and will quarrel for straws 
with its best friends. A person under the guid- 
ance of this demon, if every w T himsy or occult dis- 
covery of his own is not received with acclamation 
by one party, will wreak his spite by deserting to 
the other, and cany all his talent for disputation 
with him, sharpened by rage and disappointment. 
A man, to be steady in a cause, should be more 
attached to the truth than to the acquiescence of 
his fellow-citizens. 

I can hardly consider Mr Coleridge a deserter 
from the cause he first espoused, unless one could 
tell what cause he ever heartily espoused, or what 
party he ever belonged to, in downright earnest. 
He has not been inconsistent with himself at dif- 
ferent times, but at all times. He is a sophist, a 
casuist, a rhetorician, what you please ; and might 
have argued or declaimed to the end of his breath 
on one side of a question or another, but he never 
was a pragmatical fellow. He lived in a round of 
contradictions, and never came to a settled point. 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 181 

His fancy gave the cue to his judgment, and his 
vanity set his invention afloat in whatever direction 
he could find most scope for it, or most sympathy, 
that is, admiration. His Life and Opinions might 
naturally receive the title of one of Hume's Essays 
— ' A Sceptical Solution of Sceptical Doubts.' To 
be sure, his ' Watchman' and his ' Friend' breathe 
a somewhat different tone on subjects of a particu- 
lar description, both of them apparently pretty 
high-raised, but whoever will be at the pains to 
examine them closely, will find them to be volun- 
taries, fugues, solemn capriccios, not set composi- 
tions with any malice prepense in them, or much 
practical meaning. I believe some of his friends, 
who were indebted to him for the suggestion of 
plausible reasons for conformity, and an opening to 
a more qualified view of the letter of their para- 
doxical principles, have lately disgusted him by 
the virulence and extravagance to wilich they havo 
carried hints, of w r hich he never suspected that 
they would make the least possible use. But if 
Mr Coleridge is satisfied with the wandering 
Moods of his Mind, perhaps this is no reason that 
others may not reap the solid benefit. He himself 
is like the idle sea- weed on the ocean, tossed from 
shore to shore : they are like barnacles fastened to 
the vessel of state, rotting its goodly timbers ! 
There are some persons who are of too fastidious 



182 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

a turn of mind to like anything long, or to assent 
twice to the same opinion. always sets him- 
self to prop the falling cause, to nurse the ricketty 
bantling. He takes the part which he thinks in 
most need of his support, not so much out of mag- 
nanimity, as to prevent too great a degree of pre- 
sumption or self-complacency on the triumphant 
side. " Though truth be truth, yet he contrives to 
throw such changes of vexation on it as it may lose 
some colour." I have been delighted to hear him 
expatiate with the most natural and affecting sim- 
plicity on a favourite passage or picture, and all 
the while afraid of agreeing with him lest he should 
instantly turn round and unsay all that he had 
said, for fear of my going away with too good an 
opinion of my own taste, or too great an admira- 
tion of my idol — and his own. I dare not ask his 
opinion twice, if I have got a favourable sentence 
once, lest he should belie his own sentiments to 
stagger mine. • I have heard him talk divinely 
(like one inspired) of Boccaccio, and the story of 
the Pot of Basil, describing " how it grew, and it 
grew, and it grew," till you saw it spread its tender 
leaves in the light of his eye, and wave in the 
tremulous sound of his voice ; and yet if you asked 
him about it another time, he would, perhaps, 
affect to think little of it, or to have forgotten the 
circumstance. His enthusiasm is fickle and trea- 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 183 

cherous. The instant he finds it shared in com- 
mon, he backs out of it. His enmity is equally 
refined, but hardly so unsocial. His exquisitely 
turned invectives display all the beauty of scorn, 
and impart elegance to vulgarity. He sometimes 
finds out minute excellencies, and cries up one 
thing to put you out of conceit with another. If 
you want him to praise Sir Joshua con amove, in 
his best manner, you should begin with saying 
something about Titian — if you seem an idoliser of 
Sir Joshua, he will immediately turn off the dis- 
course, gliding like the serpent before Eve, wary 
and beautiful, to the graces of Sir Peter Lely, or 
ask you if you saw a Vandyke the other day, which 
he does not think Sir Joshua could stand near. 
But find fault with the Lake Poets, and mention 
some pretended patron of rising genius, and you 
need not fear but he will join in with you and go 
all lengths that you can wish him. You may cal- 
culate upon him there. " Pride elevates, and joy 
brightens his face." And, indeed, so eloquent is 
he, and so beautiful in his eloquence, that I myself, 
with all my freedom from gall and bitterness, could 
listen to him untired, and without knowing how 
the time went, losing and neglecting many a meal 
and hour, 

" — From morn to noon, 
From noon to dewy eve, a summer's day." 



184 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

When I cease to hear him quite, other tongues, 
turned to what accents they may of praise or blame, 
would sound dull, ungrateful, out of tune, and 
harsh, in the comparison. 

An overstrained enthusiasm produces a capri- 
ciousness in taste, as well as too much indifference. 
A person who sets no bounds to his admiration 
takes a surfeit of his favourites. He over-does the 
thing. He gets sick of Ins own everlasting praises, 
and affected raptures. His preferences are a great 
deal too violent to last. He wears out an author 
in a week, that might last him a year, or his life, 
by the eagerness with which he devours him. 
Every such favourite is in his turn the greatest 
writer in the world. Compared with the lord of 
the ascendant for the time being, Shakspeare is 
common-place, and Milton a pedant, a little insipid 
or so. Some of these prodigies require to be 
dragged out of their lurking-places, and cried up 
to the top of the compass ; — their traits are subtle, 
and must be violently obtruded on the sight. But 
the effort of exaggerated praise, though it may 
stagger others, tires the maker, and we hear of 
them no more after a while. Others take their 
turns, are swallowed whole, undigested, ravenously, 
and disappear in the same manner. Good authors 
share the fate of bad, and a library in a few years 
is nearly dismantled. It is a pity thus to outlive 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 185 

our admiration, and exhaust our relish of what is 
excellent. Actors and actresses are disposed of in 
the same conclusive peremptory way : some of 
them are talked of for months, nay, years ; then it 
is almost an offence to mention them. Friends, 
acquaintance, go the same road : — are now asked 
to come six days in the week, then warned against 
coming the seventh. The smallest faults are soon 
magnified in those we think too highly of: but 
where shall we find perfection ? If we will put up 
with nothing short of that, we shall have neither 
pictures, books, nor friends left — we shall have 
nothing but our own absurdities to keep company 
with ! "In all things a regular and moderate 
indulgence is the best security for a lasting enjoy- 
ment," 

There are numbers who judge by the event, and 
change with fortune. They extol the hero of the 
day, and join the prevailing clamour whatever it is ; 
so that the fluctuating state of public opinion regu- 
lates their feverish, restless enthusiasm, like a 
thermometer. They blow hot or cold, according as 
the wind sets favourably or otherwise. With such 
people the only infallible test of merit is success ; 
and no arguments are true that have not a large or 
powerful majority on tbeir side. They go by ap- 
pearances. Their vanity, not the truth, is their 
ruling object. They are not the last to quit a 



186 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

falling cause, and they are the first to hail the 
rising sun. Their minds want sincerity, modesty, 
and keeping. With them — 



To have done is to hang 



Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail 
In monumental mockery." 

They still, "with one consent, praise new-born 
gauds," and Fame, as they construe it, is — 



Like a fashionable host, 



That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand ; 
And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, 
Grasps-in the comer. Welcome ever smiles, 
And Farewell goes out sighing." 

Such servile flatterers made an idol of Buonaparte 
while fortune smiled upon him, but when it left 
him, they removed him from his pedestal in the 
cabinet of their vanity, as we take down the pic- 
ture of a relation that has died without naming us 
in his will. The opinion of such triflers is worth 
nothing : it is merely an echo. We do not want 
to be told the event of a question, but the rights of 
it. Truth is in their theory nothing but " noise 
and inexplicable dumb show." They are the 
heralds, outriders, and trumpeters in the proces- 
sion of fame ; are more loud and boisterous than 
tfce rest, and give themselves great airs, as the 
avowed patrons and admirers of genius and merit. 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 187 

As there are many who change their sentiments 
with circumstances (as they decided lawsuits in 
Rabelais with the dice), so there are others who 
change them with their acquaintance. " Tell me 
your company, and I'll tell you your opinions," 
might be said to many a man who piques himself 
on a select and superior view of things, distinct 
from the vulgar. Individuals of this class are 
quick and versatile, but they are not beforehand 
with opinion. They catch it, when it is pointed 
out to them, and take it at the rebound, instead of 
giving the first impulse. Their minds are a light, 
luxuriant soil, into which thoughts are easily trans- 
planted, and shoot up with uncommon sprightliness 
and vigour. They wear the dress of other people's 
minds very gracefully and unconsciously. They 
tell you your own opinion, or very gravely repeat 
an observation you have made to them about half- 
a-year afterwards. They let you into the delica- 
cies and luxuries of Spenser with great disinterest- 
edness, in return for your having introduced that 
author to their notice. They prefer West to Ra- 
phael, Stothard to Rubens, till they are told better. 
Still they are acute in the main, and good judges 
in their w r ay. By trying to improve their taste, 
and reform their notions according to an ideal 
standard, they perhaps spoil and muddle their 
native faculties, rather than do them any good. 



188 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

Their first manner is their best, because it is the 
most natural. It is well not to go out of ourselves, 
•and to be contented to take up with what we are, 
for better for worse. We can neither beg, borrow, 
nor steal characteristic excellencies. Some views 
and modes of thinking suit certain minds, as cer- 
tain colours suit certain complexions. We may 
part with very shining and very useful qualities 
without getting better ones to supply them. 
Mocking is catching, only in regard to defects. 
Mimicry is always dangerous. 

It is not necessary to change our road in order 
to advance on our journey. We should cultivate 
the spot of ground we possess to the utmost of our 
power, though it may be circumscribed and compa- 
ratively barren. A rolling stone gathers no moss. 
People may collect all the wisdom they will ever 
attain, quite as well by staying at home as by 
travelling abroad. There is no use in shifting 
from place to place, from side to side, or from sub- 
ject to subject. You have always to begin again, 
and never finish any course of study or observation. 
By adhering to the same principles you do not 
become stationary. You enlarge, correct, and con- 
solidate your reasonings, without contradicting and 
shuffling about in your conclusions. If truth 
consisted in hasty assumptions and petulant con- 
tradictions, there might be some ground for this 



ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 189 

"whiffling and violent inconsistency. But the face of 
truth, like that of nature, is different and the same. 
The first outline of an opinion, and the general 
tone of thinking, may he sound and correct, though 
we may spend any quantity of time and pains in 
working up and uniting the parts at subsequent sit- 
tings. If we have misconceived the character of the 
countenance altogether at first, no alterations will 
bring it right afterwards. Those who mistake 
white for black in the first instance, may as well 
mistake black for white when they reverse their 
canvas. I do not see what security they can 
have in their present opinions, who build their 
pretensions to wisdom on the total folly, rashness, 
and extravagance (to say no worse) of their former 
ones. The perspective may change with years and 
experience : we may see certain things nearer, and 
others more remote; but the great masses and 
landmarks will remain, though thrown into shadow 
and tinged by the intervening atmosphere : so the 
laws of the understanding, the truth of nature, will 
remain, and cannot be thrown into utter confusion 
and perplexity by our blunders or caprice, like the 
objects in Hogarth's ' Kules of Perspective,' where 
every thing is turned upside down, or thrust out of 
its well-known place. I cannot understand how 
our political Harlequins feel after all their sum- 
mersaults and metamorphoses. They can hardly, 



190 ON CONSISTENCY OF OPINION. 

I should think, look at themselves in the glass, or 
walk across the room without stumbling. Tins at 
least would be the case if they had the least reflec- 
tion or self-knowledge. But they judge from pique 
and vanity solely. There should be a certain 
decorum in life as in a picture, without which it is 
neither useful nor agreeable. If my opinions are 
not right, at any rate they are the best I have been 
able to form, and better than any others I could 
take up at random, or out of perversity, now. 
Contrary opinions vitiate one another, and destroy 
the simplicity and clearness of the mind : nothing 
is good that has not a beginning, a middle, and an 
end ; and I would wish my thoughts to be 

" Linked each to each by natural piety." 
1821. 



ESSAY XL 

PROJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF 
CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 



When I was about fourteen, (as long ago as the 
year 1792,) in consequence of a dispute one day 
after coming out of meeting, between my father 
and an old lady of the congregation, respecting the 
repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts and the 
limits of religious toleration, I set about forming 
in my head (the first time I ever attempted to 
think) the following system of political rights and 
general jurisprudence. 

It was this circumstance that decided the fate of 
my future life ; or rather, I would say it was from 
an original bias or craving to be satisfied of the 
reason of things, that I seized hold of this acci- 
dental opportunity to indulge in its uneasy and 
unconscious determination. Mr Currie, my old 
tutor at Hackney, may still have the rough draught 
of this speculation, which I gave him with tears in 



192 PROJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF 

my eyes, and which he good-naturedly accepted in 
lieu of the customary themes, and as a prooof that I 
was no idler, hut that my inability to produce a line 
on the ordinary school topics arose from my being 
involved in more difficult and abstruse matters. 
He must smile at the so oft-repeated charge against 
me of florid flippancy and tinsel. If from those 
briars I have since plucked roses, what labour has 
it not cost me ? The Test and Corporation Acts 
were repealed the other day. How would my 
father have rejoiced if this had happened in his 
time, and in concert with his old friends Dr Price, 
Dr Priestley, and others ! but now that there is no 
one to care about it, they give as a boon to indiffer- 
ence what they so long refused to justice, and thus 
ascribed by some to the liberality of the age ! 
Spirit of contradiction ! when wilt thou cease to 
rule over sublunary affairs, as the moon governs 
the tides? Not till the unexpected stroke of a 
comet throws up a new breed of men and animals 
from the bowels of the earth ; nor then neither, 
since it is included in the veiy idea of all life, 
power, and motion. For and against are insepar- 
able terms. But, not to wander any farther from 
the point, — 

I began with trying to define what a right meant ; 
and this I settled with myself was not simply that 
which is good or useful in itself, but that which is 



CIVIL AND CEIMINAL LEGISLATION. 193 

thought so by the individual, and which has the 
sanction of his will as such. 1 . Because the de- 
termining what is good in itself is an endless ques- 
tion. 2. Because one person's having a right to 
any good and another being made the judge of it, 
leaves him without any security for its being exer- 
cised to his advantage, whereas self-love is a natu- 
ral guarantee for our self-interest. 3. A thing 
being willed is the most absolute moral reason for 
its existence : that a thing is good in itself is no 
reason whatever why it should exist, till the will 
clothes it with a power to act as a motive ; and 
there is certainly nothing to prevent this will from 
taking effect (no law or admitted plea above it) but 
another will opposed to it, and which forms a right 
on the same principle. A good is only so far a 
right, inasmuch as it virtually determines the will ; 
for a right meant that which contains within itself, 
and as respects the bosom in which it is lodged, a 
cogent and unanswerable reason why it should 
exist. Suppose I have a violent aversion to one 
thing and as strong an attachment to something 
else, and that there is no other being in the world 
but myself, shall I not have a self-evident right, 
full title, liberty, to pursue the one and avoid the 
other ? That is to say in other words, there can 
be no authority to interpose between the strong 
natural tendency of the will and its desired effect, 

H 



194 PROJECTS FOR A NEW THEORY OF 

but the will of another. It may be replied that 
reason, that affection, may interpose between the 
will and the act ; but there are motives that influ- 
ence the conduct by first altering the will ; and the 
point at issue is, that these being away, what other 
principle or lever is there always left to appeal to, 
before we come to blows ? Now such a principle 
is to be found in self-interest ; and such a barrier 
against the violent will is erected by the limits 
which this principle necessarily sets to itself in the 
claims of different individuals. Thus, then, a 
right is not that which is right in itself, or best for 
the whole, or even for the individual, but that 
which is good in his own eyes, and according to his 
own will ; and to which, among a number of equally 
selfish and self-willed beings, he can lay claim, 
allowing the same latitude and allowance to others. 
Political justice is that which assigns the limits of 
these individual rights in society, or it is the ad- 
justment of force against force, of will against will, 
to prevent worse consequences. In the savage 
state there is nothing but an appeal to brute force, 
or the right of the strongest ; Politics lays down a 
rule to curb and measure out the wills of indivi- 
duals in equal portions ; Morals has a higher 
standard still, and ought never to appeal to force 
in any case whatever. Hence I always found 
something wanting in Mr Godwin's ' Enquiry con- 



LATI0N. 197 
CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGIS 

-n vx- it x- w t_- i. t rrantable in* 
cernmg Political Justice (which I rea». 

with great avidity, and hoped, from its title . ° 
vast reputation, to get entire satisfaction fron^ 
for he makes no distinction between political justice, 
which implies an appeal to force, and moral justice, 
which implies only an appeal to reason. It is 
surely a distinct question, what you can persuade 
people to do by argument and fair discussion, and 
what you may lawfully compel them to do, when 
reason and remonstrance fail. But in Mr God- 
win's system the " omnipotence of reason" super- 
sedes the use of law and government, merges the 
imperfection of the means in the grandeur of the 
end, and leaves but one class of ideas or motives, 
the highest and the least attainable possible. So 
promises and oaths are said to be of no more 
value than common breath ; nor would they, if 
every word we uttered was infallible and oracu 
lar, as if delivered from a Tripod. But this is 
pragmatical, and putting an imaginary for a real 
state of things. Again, right and duties, according 
to Mr Godwin, are reciprocal. I could not com- 
prehend this without an arbitrary definition that 
took away the meaning. In my sense, a man 
might have a right, a discriminating power, to do 
something, which others could not deprive him of, 
without a manifest infraction of certain rules laid 
down for the peace and order of society, but which 



CT FOB A NEW THEORY OF 

his duty to waive upon good reasons 
rights are seconded by force, duties are 
.gs of choice. This is the import of the words 
in common speech : why then pass over this 
distinction in a work confessedly rhetorical as well 
as logical, that is, which laid an equal stress on 
sound and sense ? Eight, therefore, has a per- 
sonal or selfish reference, as it is founded on 
the law which determines a man's actions in 
regard to his own being and well-being ; and poli- 
tical justice is that which assigns the limits of 
these individual rights on their compatibility or 
incompatibility with each other in society. Right, 
in a word, is the duty which each man owes to 
himself ; or it is that portion of the general good 
of which (as being principally interested) he is 
made the special judge ? and which is put under 
his immediate keeping. 

The next question I asked myself was, what is 
law and the real and necessary ground of civil go- 
vernment ? The answer to this is found in the 
former statement. Law is something to abridge, 
or more properly speaking to ascertain, the bounds 
of the original right, and to coerce the will of indi- 
viduals in the community. Whence, then, has the 
community such a right ? It can only arise in self- 
defence, or from the necessity of maintaining the 
equal rights of every one, and of opposing force to 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 197 

force in case of any violent and unwarrantable in- 
fringement of them* Society consists of a given 
number of individuals ; and the aggregate right of 
government is only the consequence of these inhe- 
rent rights, balancing and neutralising one another. 
How those who deny natural rights get at any sort 
of right, divine or human, I am at a loss to discover ; 
for whatever exists in combination, exists before- 
hand in an elementary state. The world is com- 
posed of atoms, and a machine cannot be made 
without materials. First, then, it follows that law 
or government is not the mere creature of a social 
compact, since each person has a certain right 
which he is bound to defend against another with- 
out asking that other's leave, or else the right would 
always be at the mercy of whoever chose to invade 
it. There would be a right to do wrong, but none 
to resist it. Thus I have a natural right to defend 
my life against a murderer, without any mutual 
compact between us : hence society has an aggregate 
right of the same kind, and to make a law to that 
effect, forbidding and punishing murder. If there 
be no such immediate value and attachment to 
life felt by the individual, and a consequent justi- 
fiable determination to defend it, then the formal 
pretension of society to vindicate a right, which, 
according to this reasoning, has no existence in 
itself, must be founded on air, on a word, or a law- 
yer's ipse dixit Secondly, society, or government, 



198 PKOJECT FOK A NEW THEOKY OF 

as such, has no right to trench upon the liberty or 
rights of the individuals its members, except as 
these last are, as it were, forfeited by interfering 
with and destroying one another, like opposite 
mechanical forces or quantities in arithmetic. Put 
the basis that each man's will is a sovereign law to 
itself : this can only hold in society, as long as he 
does not meddle with others ; but as long as he 
does not do this, the first principle retains its force, 
for there is no other principle to impeach or over- 
rule it. The will of society is not a sufficient plea ; 
since this is or ought to be made up of the wills or 
rights of the individuals composing it, which by the 
supposition remain entire, and consequently with- 
out power to act. The good of society is not a 
sufficient plea, for individuals are only bound (on 
compulsion) not to do it harm, or to be barely just : 
— benevolence and virtue are voluntary qualities. 
For instance, if two persons are obliged to do all 
that is possible for the good of both, this must 
either be settled voluntarily between them, and 
then it is friendship and not force ; or if this is not 
the case, it is plain that one must be the slave and 
lie at the caprice and mercy of the other : it will 
be one will forcibly regulating two bodies. But if 
each is left master of his own person and actions, 
with only the implied proviso of not encroaching 
on those of the other, then both may continue free 
and independent and contented in their several 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 199 

spheres. One individual has no right to interfere 
with the employment of my muscular powers, or to 
put violence on my person, to force me to contri- 
bute to the most laudable undertaking if I do not 
approve of it, any more than I have to force him to 
assist me in the direct contrary : if one has not, 
ten have not, nor a million, any such arbitrary 
right over me. What one can be made to do for a 
million is very trifling : what a million may do by 
being left free in all that merely concerns them- 
selves, and not subject to the perpetual caprice and 
insolence of authority, and pretext of the public 
good, is a very different calculation. By giving up 
the principle of political independence, it is not the 
million that will govern the one, but the one that 
will in time give law to the million. There are 
some things that cannot be free in natural society, 
and against which there is a natural law ; for in- 
stance, no one can be allowed to knock out another's 
brains or to fetter his limbs with impunity. And 
government is bound to prevent the same violations 
of liberty and justice The question is, whether it 
would not be possible for a government to exist 
and for a system of laws to be framed, that con- 
fined itself to the punishment of such offences, and 
left all the rest (except the suppression of force by 
force) optional or matter of mutual compact. What 
are a man's natural rights ? Those, the infringe- 



200 PEOJECT FOR A NEW THEOET OF 

ment of which cannot on any supposition go un- 
punished : by leaving all but cases of necessity to 
choice and reason, much would be perhaps gained, 
and nothing lost. 

Coeollary 1. It results from the foregoing 
statement, that there is nothing naturally to re- 
strain or oppose the will of one man, but the will 
of another meeting it. Thus, in a desert island, 
it is evident that my will and rights would be abso- 
lute and unlimited, and I might say with Kobinson 
Crusoe, " I am monarch of all I survey." 

Coeollaey 2. It is coming into society that 
circumscribes my will and rights, by establishing 
equal and mutual rights, instead of the original 
uncircumscribed ones. They are still " founded as 
the rock," though not so broad and general as the 
casing air, for the only thing that limits them is 
the solidity of another right, no better than my 
own, and, like stones in a building, or a mosaic 
pavement, each remains not the less firmly rivetted 
to its place, though it cannot encroach upon the 
next to it. I do not belong to the state, nor am I 
a nonentity in it, but I am one part of it, and in- 
dependent in it, for that very reason that every one 
in it is independent of me. Equality, instead of 
being destroyed by society, results from and is 
improved by it ; for in politics as in physics, the 
action and reaction are the same : the right of 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION, £01 

resistance on their part implies the right of self- 
defence on mine. In a theatre, each person has 
a right to his own seat, by the supposition that he 
has no right to intrude into any one else's. They 
are convertible propositions. Away, then, with the 
notion that liberty and equality are inconsistent 
But here is the artifice : by merging the rights and 
independence of the individual in the factitious 
order of society, those rights become arbitrary, 
capricious, equivocal, removable at the pleasure of 
the state or ruling power ; there is nothing sub- 
stantial or durable implied in them : if each has 
no positive claim, naturally, those of all taken to- 
gether can mount up to nothing ; right and justice 
are mere blanks to be filled up with arbitrary will, 
and the people have thenceforward no defence 
against the government. On the other hand, sup- 
pose these rights to be not empty names or artificial 
arrangements, but original and inherent like solid 
atoms, then it is not in the power of government to 
annihilate one of them, whatever may be the con- 
fusion arising from their struggle for mastery, or 
before they can settle into order and harmony. 
Mr Burke talks of the reflections and refractions 
of the rays of light as altering their primary essence 
and direction. But if there were no original rays 
of light, there could be neither refraction, nor reflec- 
tions. Why, then, does he try by cloudy sophistry 



202 PEOJECT FOE A NEW THEOEY OF 

to blot the sun out of heaven ? One body impinges 
against and impedes another in the fall, but it could 
not do this, but for the principle of gravity. The 
author of the * Subhme and Beautiful ' would have 
a single atom outweigh the great globe itself ; or 
an empty title, a bloated privilege, or a grievous 
wrong, overturn the entire mass of truth and jus- 
tice. The question between the author and his 
opponents appears to be simply this; — whether 
politics, or the general good, is an affair of reason 
or imagination ! and this seems decided by another 
consideration, viz., that Imagination is the judge of 
individual things, and Reason of generals. Hence 
the great importance of the principle of universal 
suffrage ; for if the vote and choice of a single in- 
dividual goes for nothing, so by parity of reasoning 
may that of all the rest of the community : but 
if the choice of every man in the community is 
held sacred, then what must be the weight and 
value of the whole ? 

Many persons object that by this means property 
is not represented, and so to avoid that they would 
have nothing but property represented, at the same 
time that they pretend that if the elective franchise 
were thrown open to the poor, they would be wholly 
at the command of the rich, to the prejudice and 
exclusion of the middle and independent classes of 
society. Property always has a natural influence 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 203 

and authority : it is only people without property 
that have no natural protection, and require every 
artificial and legal one. Those that have much, 
shall have none ; and those that have little, shall 
have less. This proverb is no less true in public 
than in private life. The better orders (as they are 
called, and who, in virtue of this title, would assume 
a monopoly in the direction of state affairs) are 
merely and in plain English those who are better 
of than others ; and as they get the wished-for 
monopoly into their hands, others will uniformly 
be worse off, and will sink lower and lower in the 
scale, so that it is essentially requisite to extend 
the elective franchise in order to counteract the 
excess of the great and increasing goodness of the 
better orders to themselves. I see no reason to 
suppose that in any case popular feeling (if free 
course were given to it) would bear down public 
opinion. Literature is at present pretty nearly on 
the footing of universal suffrage, yet the public 
defer sufficiently to the critics ; and when no party 
bias interferes, and the government do not make a 
point of running a writer down, the verdict is tole- 
rably fair and just. I do not say that the result 
might not be equally satisfactory, when literature 
was patronized more immediately by the great ; 
but then lords and ladies had no interest in praising 
a bad piece and condemning a good one. If they 



204 PEOJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF 

could have laid a tax on the town for not going to 
it, they would have run a bad play forty nights 
together, or the whole year round, without scruple. 
As things stand, the worse the law, the better for 
the lawmakers : it takes everything from others to 
give to them. It is common to insist on universal 
suffrage and the ballot together. But if the first 
were allowed, the second would be unnecessary. The 
ballot is only useful as a screen from arbitrary 
power. There is nothing manly or independent 
to recommend it. 

Corollary 3. If I was out at sea in a boat with 
a jure divino monarch, and he wanted to throw me 
overboard, I would not let him. No gentleman 
would ask such a thing, no freeman would submit 
to it. Has he, then, a right to dispose of the lives 
and liberties of thirty millions of men ? Or have 
they more right than I have to resist his demands ? 
They have thirty millions of times that right, if 
they had a particle of the same spirit that I have. 
It is not the individual, then, whom in this case I 
fear (to me "there's no divinity doth hedge a king"), 
but thirty millions of his subjects that call me to 
account in his name, and who are of a most ap- 
proved and indisputable loyalty, and who have both 
the right and power. The power rests with the 
multitude, but let them beware how the exercise of 
it turns against their own rights ! It is not the 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 205 

idol but the worshippers that are to be dreaded, 
and who, by degrading one of their fellows, render 
themselves liable to be branded with the same 
indignities. 

Coeollaey 4. No one can be born a slave ; for 
my limbs are my own, and the power and the will 
to use them are anterior to all laws, and indepen- 
dent of the control of every other person. No one 
acquires a right over another but that other ac- 
quires some reciprocal right over him; therefore 
the relation of master and slave is a contradiction 
in political logic. Hence also it follows that com- 
binations among labourers for the rise of wages are 
always just and lawful, as much as those among 
master manufacturers to keep them down, A man's 
labour is his own, at least as much as another's 
goods; and he may starve if he pleases, but he 
may refuse to work except on his own terms. The 
right of property is reducible to this simple prin- 
ciple, that one man has not a right to the produce 
of another's labour, but each man has a right to 
the benefit of his own exertions and the use of his 
natural and inalienable powers, unless for a sup- 
posed equivalent and by mutual consent. Personal 
liberty and property therefore rest upon the same 
foundation. I am glad to see that Mr Macculloch, 
in his * Essay on Wages,' admits the right of com- 
bination among journeymen and others. I laboured 



206 PROJECT FOE A NEW THEORY OF 

this point hard, and, I think, satisfactorily, a good 
while ago, in my * Reply to Mr Martinis.' " Throw 
your bread upon the waters, and after many days 
you shall find it again." 

There are four things that a man may especially 
call his own. 1. His person; 2. his actions ; 3. 
his property : 4. his opinions. Let us see how each 
of these claims unavoidably circumscribes and mo- 
difies those of others, on the principle of abstract 
equity and necessity and independence above laid 
down. 

First, as to the Eights of Persons. My 
intention is to show that the right of society to 
make laws to coerce the will of others, is founded 
on the necessity of repelling the wanton encroach- 
ment of that will on their rights ; that is, strictly 
on the right of self-defence or resistance to aggres- 
sion. Society comes forward and says, "Let us 
alone, and we will let you alone, otherwise we 
must see which is strongest ;" its object is not to 
patronize or advise individuals for their good and 
against their will, but to protect itself : meddling 
with others forcibly on any other plea or for any 
other purpose is impertinence. But equal rights 
destroy one another ; nor can there be a right to 
impossible or impracticable things. Let A, B, C, 
D, &c, be different component parts of any society, 
each claiming to be the centre and master of a 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 207 

certain sphere of activity and self-determination : 
as long as each keeps within his own line of de- 
marcation there is no harm done, nor any penalty 
incurred —it is only the superfluous and overbearing 
will of particular persons that must be restrained or 
lopped off by the axe of the law. Let A be the 
culprit ; B, C, D, &c, or the rest of the commu- 
nity, are plaintiffs against A, and wish to prevent 
his taking any unfair or unwarranted advantage 
over them. They set up no pretence to dictate or 
domineer over him, but merely to hinder his dic- 
tating to and domineering over them ; and in this, 
having both might and right on their side, they 
have no difficulty in putting it in execution. Every 
man's independence and discretionary power over 
what peculiarly and exclusively concerns himself, 
is his castle (whether round, square, or, according 
to Mr Owen's new map of improvements, in the 
form of a parallelogram). As long as he keeps 
within this, he is safe — society has no hold of him : 
it is when he quits it to attack his neighbours that 
they resort to reprisals, and make short work of the 
interloper. It is, however, time to endeavour to 
point out in what this natural division of right, and 
separate advantage, consists. In the first place, 
A, B, C, D have the common and natural rights 
of persons, in so far, that none of these has a right 
to offer violence to, or cause bodily pain or injury 



208 PROJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF 

to any of the others. Sophists laugh at natural 
rights : they might as well deny that we have 
natural persons ; for while the last distinction holds 
true and good by the constitution of things, certain 
consequences must and will follow from it — " while 
this machine is to us Hamlet," &c. For instance, 
I should like to know whether Mr Burke, with his 
4 Sublime and Beautiful' fancies, would deny that 
each person has a particular body and senses be- 
longing to him, so that he feels a peculiar and 
natural interest in whatever affects these more than 
another can, and whether such a peculiar and para- 
mount interest does not imply a direct and unavoid- 
able right in maintaining this circle of individuality 
inviolate. To argue otherwise is to assert that 
indifference, or that which does not feel either the 
good or the ill, is as capable a judge and zealous a 
discriminator of right and wrong as that which 
does. The right, then, is coeval and co-extended 
with the interest, not a product of convention, but 
inseparable from the order of the universe ; the 
doctrine itself is natural and solid ; it is the con- 
trary fallacy that is made of air and words. Mr 
Burke, in such a question, was like a man out at 
sea in a haze, and could never tell the difference 
between land and clouds. If another break my 
arm by violence, this will not certainly give him 
additional health or strength ; if he stun me by a 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 209 

How or inflict torture on my limbs, it is I who feel 
tie pain, and not he ; and it is hard if I, who am 
tie sufferer, am not allowed to be the judge. That 
aiother should pretend to deprive me of it, or 
piBtend to judge for me, and set up his will against 
miue in what concerns this portion of my existence 
— where I have all at stake and he nothing — is 
nol merely injustice, but impudence. The circle 
of personal security and right, then, is not an ima- 
ginary and arbitrary line fixed by law and the will 
of the prince, or the scaly finger of Mr Hobbes's 
* Leyiathan/ but is real and inherent in the nature 
of things, and itself the foundation of law and 
justice. " Hands off is fair play" — according to 
the old adage. One, therefore, has not a right to 
lay violent hands on another, or to infringe on the 
sphere of his personal identity ; one must not run 
foul of another, or he is liable to be repelled and 
punished for the offence. If you meet an English- 
man suddenly in the street, he will run up against 
you sooner than get out of your way, which last he 
thinks a compromise of his dignity and a relinquish- 
ment of his purpose, though he expects you to get 
out of his. A Frenchman in the same circumstan- 
ces will come up close to you and try to walk over 
you, as if there was no one in his way ; but if you 
take no notice of him, he will step on one side, and 
make you a low bow. The one is a fellow of 



210 PEOJECT FOE A NEW THEOEY OF 

stubborn will, the other a petit maitre. An 
Englishman at a play mounts upon a berch 
and refuses to get down at the request of aio- 
ther, who threatens to call him to account :he 
next day. "Yes," is the answer of the first, "if 
your master will let you !" His abuse of liberty, 
he thinks, is justified by the other's want of it. All 
an Englishman's ideas are modifications of his Till, 
which shows in one way that right is founded on 
will, since the English are at once the freest and 
most wilful of all people. If you meet another on 
the ridge of a precipice, are you to throw each 
other down ? Certainly not. You are to pass as 
well as you can. " Give and take," is the rule of 
natural right, where the right is not all on one side 
and cannot be claimed entire. Equal weights and 
scales produce a balance, as much as where the 
scales are empty : so it does not follow (as our 
votaries of absolute power would insinuate) that one 
man's right is nothing because another's is some- 
thing. But suppose there is not time to pass, and 
one or other must perish in the case just mentioned, 
then each must do the best for himself that he can, 
and the instinct of self-preservation prevails over 
everything else. In the streets of London, the 
passengers take the right hand of one another and 
the wall alternately : he who should not conform to 
this rule would be guilty of a breach of the peace. 



CIVIL AND CKIMINAL LEGISLATION. 211 

But if a house were falling, or a mad ox driven 
furiously by, the rule would be of course suspended, 
because the case would be out of the ordinary. Yet I 
think I can conceive and have even known persons 
capable of carrying the point of gallantry in political 
right to such a pitch as to refuse to take a prece- 
dence which did not belong to them in the most peri- 
lous circumstances, just as a soldier may waive a 
right to quit his post, and takes his turn in battle. 
The actual collision or case of personal assault and 
battery, is then clearly prohibited, inasmuch as each 
person's body is clearly denned : but how if A use 
other means of annoyance against B, such as a sword 
or poison, or resort to what causes other painful sen- 
sations besides tangible ones, for instance, certain 
disagreeable sounds and smells ? Or, if these are 
included as a violation of personal rights, then how 
draw the line between them and the employing cer- 
tain offensive words and gestures, or uttering opi- 
nions which I disapprove ? This is a puzzler for the 
dogmatic school ; but they solve the whole difficulty 
by an assumption of utility, which is as much as to 
tell a person that the way to any place to which he 
asks a direction is " to follow his nose." We want to 
know by given marks and rules what is best and 
useful ; and they assure us very wisely, that this 
is infallibly and clearly determined by what is best 
and useful. Let us try something else. It seems 



212 PEOJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF 

no less necessary to erect certain little fortalices, 
with palisades and outworks about them, for 
Eight to establish and maintain itself in, tlan 
as landmarks to guide us across the wide waste 
of Utility. If a person runs a sword through 
me, or administers poison, or procures it to be 
administered, the effect, the pain, disease or 
death, is the same, and I have the same right 
to prevent it, on the principle that I am the 
sufferer ; that the injury is offered to me, and 
he is no gainer by it, except for mere malice or 
caprice, and I therefore remain master and judge 
of my own remedy, as in the former case ; the 
principle and definition of right being to secure to 
each individual the determination and protection 
of that portion of sensation in which he has the great- 
est, if not a sole interest, and as it were identity with 
it. Again, as to what are called nuisances, to wit of- 
fensive smells, sounds, &c. it is more difficult to deter- 
mine, on the ground that one man's meat is another 
mans poison. I remember a case occurred in the 
neighbourhood where I was, and at the time I was 
trying my best at this question, which puzzled me 
a good deal A rector of a little town in Shrop- 
shire, who was at variance with all his parishioners, 
had conceived a particular spite to a lawyer who 
lived next door to him, and as a means of annoying 
him, used to get together all sorts of rubbish, weeds, 



CIVIL AND CEIMINAL LEGISLATION. 213 

and unsavoury materials and set them on fire, so 
that the smoke should blow over into his neigh- 
bour's garden ; whenever the wind set in that 
direction, he said as a signal to his gardener, " It's 
a fine Wicksteed wind to-day ;" and the operation 
commenced. Was this an action of assault and 
battery, or not ? I think it was, for this reason, 
that the offence was unequivocal, and that the only 
motive for the proceeding was the giving this 
offence. The assailant would not like to be served 
so himself. Mr Bentham would say, the malice 
of the motive was a set-off to the injury. I shall 
leave that prima philosophia consideration out of the 
question. A man who knocks out another's brains 
with a bludgeon may say it pleases him to do so ; 
but will it please him to have the compliment 
returned? If he still persists, in spite of this 
punishment, there is no preventing him; but if 
not, then it is a proof that he thinks the pleasure 
less than the pain to himself, and consequently to 
another in the scales of justice. The lex talionis 
is an excellent test. Suppose a third person (the 
physician of the place) had said, " It is a fine 
Egerton wind to day," our rector would have been 
non-plussed ; for he would have found that, as he 
suffered all the hardship, he had the right to com- 
plain of and to resist an action of another, the con- 
sequences of which affected principally himself. 



214 PROJECT FOE A NEW THEORY OF 

Now mark : if he had himself had any advantage to 
derive from the action, which he could not obtein 
in any other way, then he would feel that his 
neighbour also had the same plea and right to fol- 
low his own course (still this might be a doubtful 
point) ; but in the other case it would be sheer 
malice and wanton interference ; that is, not the 
exercise of a right, but the invasion of another's 
comfort and independence. Has a person then a 
right to play on the horn or on a flute, on the same 
staircase ? I say, yes ; because it is for his own im- 
provement and pleasure, and not to annoy another ; 
and because, accordingly, every one in his own case 
would wish to reserve this or a similar privilege to 
himself. I do not think a person has a right to 
beat a drum under one's window, because this is 
altogether disagreeable, and if there is an extraor- 
dinary motive for it, then it is fit that the person 
should be put to some little inconvenience in re- 
moving his sphere of liberty of action to a reasonable 
distance. A tallow-chandler's shop or a steam-engine 
is a nuisance in a town, and ought to be removed 
into the suburbs; but they are to be tolerated 
where they are least inconvenient, because they 
are necessary somewhere, and there is no remedy- 
ing the inconvenience. The right to protest against 
and to prohibit them rests with the suffering party ; 
but because this point of the greatest interest is 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 215 

less clear in some cases than in others, it does not 
follow that there is no right or principle of justice 
in the case. 3. As to matters of contempt and the 
expression of opinion, I think these do not fall 
under the head of force, and are not, on that 
ground, subjects of coercion and law. For exam- 
ple, if a person inflicts a sensation upon me by 
material means, whether tangible or otherwise, I 
cannot help that sensation ; I am so far the slave 
of that other, and have no means of resisting him 
but by force, which I would define to be material 
agency. But if another proposes an opinion to me, 
I am not bound to be of this opinion ; my judg- 
ment and will is left free, and therefore I have no 
right to resort to force to recover a liberty which I 
have not lost. If I do this to prevent that other 
from pressing that opinion, it is I who invade his 
liberty, without warrant because without necessity. 
It may be urged that material agency, or force, is 
used in the adoption of sounds or letters of the 
alphabet, which I cannot help seeing or hearing. 
But the injury is not here, but in the moral and 
artificial inference, which I am at liberty to admit 
or reject, according to the evidence. There is no 
force but argument in the case, and it is reason, 
not the will of another, that gives the law. Fur- 
ther, the opinion expressed, generally concerns not 
one individual, but the general interest ; and of 



£16 PEOJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF 

that my approbation or disapprobation is not a 
commensurate or the sole judge. I am judge of 
my own interest, because it is my affair, and no 
one's else ; but, by the same rule, I am not judge, 
nor have I a veto on that which appeals to all 
the world, merely because I have a prejudice or 
fancy against it. But suppose another expresses 
by signs or words a contempt for me ? Answer. 
I do not know that he is bound to have a respect 
for me. Opinion is free ; for if I wish him to have 
that respect, then he must be left free to judge for 
himself, and consequently to arrive at and to ex- 
press the contrary opinion, or otherwise the verdict 
and testimony I aim at could not be obtained ; just 
as players must consent to be hissed, if they expect 
to be applauded. Opinion cannot be forced, for it 
is not grounded on force, but on evidence and rea- 
son, and therefore these last are the proper instru- 
ments to control that opinion, and to make it 
favourable to what we wish, or hostile to what we 
disapprove. In what relates to action, the will of 
another is force, or the determining power : in 
what relates to opinion, the mere will or ipse dixit 
of another is of no avail but as it gains over other 
opinions to its side, and therefore neither needs 
nor admits of force as a counteracting means to be 
used against it. But in the case of calumny or 
indecency. 1. — I would say that it is the sup- 



CIVIL AND CEIMINAL LEGISLATION. 217 

pression of truth that gives falsehood its worst 
edge. What transpires (however maliciously or 
secretly) in spite of the law, is taken for gospel, 
and as it is impossible to prevent calumny, so it 
is impossible to counteract it on the present system, 
or while every attempt to answer it is attributed 
to the people's not daring to speak the truth. If 
any single fact or accident peeps out, the whole 
character, having this legal screen before it, is 
supposed to be of a piece ; and the world, defrauded 
of the means of coming to their own conclusion, 
naturally infer the worst. Hence the saying, that 
reputation once gone never returns. If, however, 
we grant the general licence or liberty of the press, 
in a scheme where publicity is the great object, it 
seems a manifest contre-sens that the author should 
be the only thing screened or kept a secret : either, 
therefore, an anonymous libeller would be heard with 
contempt, or if he signed his name thus, — , or thus, 

, it would be equivalent to being branded 

publicly as a calumniator, or marked with the T. F. 
(travail force) or the broad E. (rogue) on his back. 
These are thought sufficient punishments, and yet 
they rest on opinion without stripes or labour. As 
to indecency, in proportion as it is flagrant is the 
shock and resentment against it ; and as vanity is 
the source of indecency, so the universal discounte- 
nance and shame is its most effectual antidote. If 



218 PROJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF 

it is public, it produces immediate reprisals from 
public opinion which no brow can stand ; and if 
secret, it had better be left so. No one can then 
say it is obtruded on him ; and if he will go in 
search of it, it seems odd he should call upon the 
law to frustrate the object of his pursuit. Fur- 
ther, at the worst, society has its remedy in its own 
hands whenever its moral sense is outraged, that 
is, it may send to Coventry, or excommunicate like 
the church of old ; for though it may have no right 
to prosecute, it is not bound to protect or patronise, 
unless by voluntary consent of all parties concerned. 
Secondly, as to rights of action, or personal liberty. 
These have no limit but the rights of persons or pro- 
perty aforesaid or to be hereafter named. They are 
the channels in w T hich the others run without injury 
and without impediment, as a river within its 
banks. Every one has a right to use his natural 
powers in the way most agreeable to himself, and 
which he deems most conducive to his own advan- 
tage, provided he does not interfere with the corre- 
sponding rights and liberties of others. He has 
no right to coerce them by a decision of his indivi- 
dual will, and as long as he abstains from this he 
has no right to be coerced by an expression of the 
aggregate will, that is, by law. The law is the 
emanation of the aggregate will, and this will re- 
ceives its warrant to act only from the forcible 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 219 

pressure from without, and its indispensable resis- 
tance to it. Let us see how this will operate to 
the pruning and curtailment of law. The rage of 
legislation is the first vice of society : it ends by 
limiting it to as few things as possible. 1. There 
can, according to the principle here imperfectly 
sketched, be no laws for the enforcement of morals ; 
because morals have to do with the will and affec- 
tions, and the law only puts a restraint on these. 
Every one is politically constituted the judge of 
what is best for himself : it is only when he en- 
croaches on others that he can be called to account. 
He has no right to say to others, You shall do as 
I do : how then should they have a right to say to 
him, You shall do as we do ? Mere numbers do 
not convey the right, for the law addresses not one, 
bnt the whole community. For example, there 
cannot rightly be a law to set a man in the stocks for 
getting drunk. It injures his health, you say. 
That is his concern, and not mine. But it is de- 
trimental to his affairs : if so, he suffers most by 
it. But it is ruinous to his wife and family : he is 
their natural and legal guardian. But they are 
thrown upon the parish : the parish need not take 
the burden upon itself, unless it chooses or has 
agreed to do so. If a man is not kind to or fond 
of his wife I see no law to make him. If he 
beats her, or threatens her life, she as clearly has 



220 PBOJECT FOR A NEW THEOEY OF 

a right to call in the aid of a constable or justice of 
peace. I do not see, in like manner, how there 
can he law against gambling (against cheating 
there may) nor against usury. A man gives 
twenty, forty, a hundred per cent, with his eyes 
open, but would he do it if strong necessity did 
not impel him ? Certainly no man would give 
double if he could get the same advantage for half. 
There are circumstances in which a rope to save 
me from drowning, or a draught of water, would be 
worth all I have. In like manner, lotteries are 
fair things ; for the loss is inconsiderable, and the 
advantage may be incalculable. I do not believe 
the poor put into them, but the reduced rich, the 
shabby-genteel. Players were formerly prohibited 
as a nuisance, and fortune-tellers still are liable to 
the Vagrant Act, which the parson of the parish 
duly enforces in his zeal to prevent cheating and 
imposture, while he himself has his two livings, 
and carries off a tenth of the produce of the soil. 
Rape is an offence clearly punishable by law ; but 
I would not say that simple incontinence is so. I 
will give one more example, which, though quaint, 
may explain the distinction I aim at. A man may 
commit suicide if he pleases, without being respon- 
sible to any one. He may quit the world as he 
would quit the country where he was born. But 
if any person were to fling himself from the gallery* 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 221 

into the pit of a playhouse, so as to endanger the 
lives of others, if he did not succeed in killing him- 
self, he would render himself liable to punishment 
for the attempt, if it were to he supposed that a 
person so desperately situated would care about 
consequences. Duelling is lawful on the same 
principle, where every precaution is taken to show 
that the act is voluntary and fair on both sides. I 
might give other instances, but these will suffice. 
2. There should be a perfect toleration in matters 
of religion. In what relates to the salvation of a 
man's soul, he is infinitely more concerned than I 
can be ; and to pretend to dictate to him in this 
particular is an infinite piece of impertinence and 
presumption. But if a man has no religion at all ? 
That does not hinder me from having any. If he 
stood at the church door and would not let me 
enter, I should have a right to push him aside ; 
but if he lets me pass by without interruption, I 
have no right to turn back and drag him in after 
me. He might as well force me to have no reli- 
gion as I force him to have one, or burn me at 
a stake for believing what he does not. Opinion, 
" like the wild goose, flies, unclaimed of any man :" 
heaven is like " the marble air, accessible to all ;" 
and therefore there is no occasion to trip up one 
another's heels on the roacl, or to erect a turnpike 
gate to collect large sums from the passengers. 



222 PROJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF 

How have I a right to make another pay for the 
saving of my soul, or to assist me in damning his? 
There should he no secular interference in sacred 
things ; no laws to suppress or establish any church 
or sect in religion, no religious persecutions, tests, 
or disqualifications ; the different sects should be 
left to inveigle and hate each other as much as they 
please ; but without the love of exclusive domina- 
tion and spiritual power there would be little temp- 
tation to bigotry and intolerance. 

3. As to the Rights of Property. It is of 
no use a man's being left free to enjoy security, or 
to exercise his freedom of action, unless he has a 
right to appropriate certain other things necessary 
to his comfort and subsistence to his own use. In 
a state of nature, or rather of solitary independence, 
he has a right to all he can lay his hands on : 
what then limits this right ? Its being inconsistent 
with the same right in others. This strikes a ma- 
thematical or logical balance between two extreme 
and equal pretensions. As there is not a natural 
and indissoluble connexion between the individual 
and his property, or those outward objects of which 
he may have need (they being detached, unlimited, 
and transferable), as there is between the individual 
and his person, either as an organ of sensation or 
action, it is necessary, in order to prevent endless 
debate and quarrels, to fix upon some other crite- 



CIVTL AND CEIMINAL LEGISLATION. 223 

rion or common ground of preference. Animals, 
or savages, have no idea of any other right than 
that of the strongest, and seize on all they can get 
by force, without any regard to justice or an equal 
claim. 1. One mode of settling the point is to 
divide the spoil. That is allowing an equal advan- 
tage to both. Thus boys, when they unexpectedly 
find anything, are accustomed to cry "Halves!" 
But this is liable to other difficulties, and applies 
only to the case of joint-finding. 2. Priority of 
possession is a fair way of deciding the right of 
property ; first, on the mere principle of a lottery, 
or the old saying, " First come, first served ;" se- 
condly, because the expectation having been excited, 
and the will more set upon it, this constitutes a 
powerful reason for not violently forcing it to let go 
its hold. The greater strength of volition is, we 
have seen, one foundation of right: for suppos- 
ing a person to be absolutely indifferent to any 
thing, he could properly set up no claim to it. 
3. Labour, or the having produced a thing or 
fitted it for use by previous exertion, gives this 
right, chiefly indeed for moral and final causes, 
because if one enjoyed what another had pro- 
duced, there would be nothing but idleness and 
rapacity, but also in the sense we are inquiring 
into, because on a merely selfish ground the labour 
undergone, or the time lost, is entitled to an equi- 



224 PROJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF 

valent, ceteris manentibus. 4. If another, volun- 
tarily, or for a consideration, resigns to me his right 
in anything, it to all intents and purposes becomes 
mine. This accounts not only for gifts, the trans- 
fer of property by bargains, &c, but for legacies, 
and the transmission of property in families or 
otherwise. It is hard to make a law to circum- 
scribe this right of disposing of what we have as . 
we please ; yet the boasted law of primogeniture, 
which is professedly the bulwark and guardian of 
property, is in direct violation of this principle. 
5, and lastly. Where a thing is common, and there 
is enough for all, and no one contributes to it, as 
air or water, there can be no property in it. The 
proximity to a herring-fishery, or the having been 
the first to establish a particular traffic in such com- 
modities, may perhaps give this right by aggravat- 
ing our will, as having a nearer or longer power 
over them ; but the rule is the other way. It is 
on the same principle that poaching is a kind of 
honest thieving, for that which costs no trouble and 
is confined to no limits seems to belong to no one 
exclusively — (why else do poachers or country peo- 
ple seize on this kind of property with the least 
reluctance but that it is the least like stealing ?) : 
and as the game laws and the tenaciousness of the 
rights to that which has least the character of pro- 
perty, as most a point of honour, produced a revo- 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 225 

lution in one country, so they are not unlikely to 
produce it in another. The object and principle of 
the laws of property, then, is this: 1. To supply 
individuals and the community with what they 
need. 2. To secure an equal share to each indi- 
vidual, other circumstances being the same. 3. 
To keep the peace and promote industry and plenty 
by proportioning each man's share to his own ex- 
ertions, or to the good-will and discretion of others. 
The intention, then, being that no individual should 
rob another, or be starved but by his refusing to 
work (the earth and its produce being the natural 
estate of the community, subject to these regula- 
tions of individual right and public welfare), the 
question is, whether any individual can have a right 
to rob or starve the whole community; or if the 
necessary discretion left in the application of the 
principle has led to a state of things subversive of 
the principle itself, and destructive to the welfare 
and existence of the state, whether the end being 
defeated, the law does not fall to the ground, or 
require either a powerful corrective or a total re- 
construction. The end is superior to the means, 
and the use of a thing does not justify its abuse. 
If a clock is quite out of order and always goes 
wrong, it is no argument to say it was set right at 
first and on true mechanical principles, and there- 
fore it must go on as it has done, according to all 

I 



2*26 PROJECT FOR A NEW THEORY OF 

the rules of art ; on the contrary, it is taken to 
pieces, repaired, and the whole restored to the ori- 
ginal state, or, if this is impossible, a new one is 
made. So society, when out of order, which it is 
whenever the interests of the many are regularly 
and outrageously sacrificed to those of the few, 
must be repaired, and either a reform or a revolu- 
tion cleanse its corruptions and renew its elasti- 
city. People talk of the poor laws as a grievance. 
Either they or a national bankruptcy, or a revolu- 
tion, are necessary. The labouring population 
have not doubled in the last forty years ; there are 
still no more than are necessary to do the work in 
husbandry, &c, that is indispensably required ; but 
the wages of a labouring man are no higher than 
they were forty years ago, and the price of food and 
necessaries is at least double what it was then, 
owing to taxes, grants, monopolies, and immense 
fortunes gathered during the war by the richer or 
more prosperous classes, who have not ceased to 
propagate in the geometrical ratio, though the 
poor have not done it, and the maintaining of whose 
younger and increasing branches in becoming 
splendour and affluence presses with double weight 
on the poor and labouring classes. The greater 
part of a community ought not to be paupers or 
starving ; and when a government by obstinacy and 
madness has reduced them to . that state, it must 



CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 227 

either take wise and effectual measures to relieve 
them from it, or pay the forfeit of its own wicked- 
ness and folly. 

It seems, then, that a system of just and useful 
laws may be constructed nearly, if not wholly, on 
the principle of the right of self-defence, or the 
security for person, liberty, and property. There 
are exceptions, such, for instance, as in the case of 
children, idiots, and insane persons. These com- 
mon-sense dictates for a general principle can only 
hold good where the general conditions are com- 
plied with. There are also mixed cases, partaking 
of civil and moral justice. Is a man bound to sup- 
port his children ? Not in strict political right ; 
but he may be compelled to forego all the benefits 
of civil society, if he does not fulfil an engagement 
wiiich, according to the feelings and principles of 
that society, he has undertaken. So in respect to 
marriage. It is a voluntary contract, and the vio- 
lation of it is punishable on the same plea of sym- 
pathy and custom. Government is not necessarily 
founded on common consent, but on the right which 
society has to defend itself against all aggression. 
But am I bound to pay or support the government 
for defending the society against any violence or 
injustice ? No : but then they may withdraw the 
protection of the law from me if I refuse, and it is 
on this ground that the contributions of each indi- 



228 PROJECT, &C. OF LEGISLATION. 

vidual to the maintenance of the state are demanded. 
Laws are, or ought to be, founded on the supposed 
infraction of individual rights. If these rights, and 
the best means of maintaining them, are always 
clear, and there could be no injustice or abuse of 
power on the part of the government, every govern- 
ment might be its own lawgiver : but as neither of 
these is the case, it is necessary to recur to the 
general voice for settling the boundaries of light 
and wrong, and even more for preventing the 
government, under pretence of the general peace 
and safety, from subjecting the whole liberties, 
rights, and resources of the community to its own 
advantage and sole will. 
1828. 



ESSAY XII. 

ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE, 



Thebe is no single speech of Mr Burke which can 
convey a satisfactory idea of his powers of mind : 
to do him justice, it would be necessary to quote 
all his works ; the only specimen of Burke is, all 
that he wrote. With respect to most other speak- 
ers, a specimen is generally enough, or more than 
enough. When you are acquainted with their 
. manner, and see what proficiency they have made 
in the mechanical exercise of their profession, with 
what facility they can borrow a simile, or round a 
period, how dexterously they can argue, and object, 
and rejoin, you are satisfied ; there is no other dif- 
ference in their speeches than what arises from the 
difference of the subjects. But this was not the 
case with Burke. He brought his subjects along 
with him ; he drew his materials from himself. 
The only limits which circumscribed his variety 
were the stores of his own mind. His stock of 
ideas did not consist of a few meagre facts, mea- 



230 ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 

grely stated, of half-a-dozen common-places tortured 
in a thousand different ways : but his mine of 
wealth was a profound understanding, inexhaust- 
ible as the human heart, and various as the sources 
of human nature. He therefore enriched every 
subject to which he applied himself, and new 
subjects were only the occasions of calling forth 
fresh powers of mind which had not been before 
exerted. It w r ould therefore be in vain to look for 
the proof of his powers in any one of his speeches 
or writings : they all contain some additional proof 
of power. In speaking of Burke, then, I shall 
speak of the whole compass and circuit of his mind 
— not of that small part or section of him which I 
have been able to give : to do otherwise w T ould be 
like the story of the man who put the brick in his 
pocket, thinking to show it as the model of a house. 
I have been able to manage pretty well with respect 
to all my other speakers, and curtailed them down 
without remorse. It was easy to reduce them, 
within certain limits, to fix their spirit, and con- 
dense their variety ; by having a certain quantity 
given, you might infer all the rest ; it was only the 
same thing over again. But who can bind Proteus, 
or confine the roving flight of genius ? 

Burke's writings are better than his speeches, 
and indeed his speeches are writings. But he 
seemed to feel himself more at ease, to have a fuller 



ox THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 23.1 

possession of his faculties in addressing the public, 
than in addressing the House of Commons. Burke 
was raised into public life : and he seems to have 
been prouder of this new dignity than became so 
great a man, For this reason, most of his speeches 
have a sort of parliamentary preamble to them : 
he seems fond of coqueting with the House of 
Commons, and is perpetually calling the Speaker 
out to dance a minuet with him, before he begins. 
There is also something like an attempt to stimu- 
late the superficial dulness of his hearers by excit- 
ing their surprise, by running into extravagance : 
and he sometimes demeans himself by condescend- 
ing to what may be considered as bordering too 
much upon buffoonery, for the amusement of the 
company. Those lines of Milton were admir- 
ably applied to him by some one — M The ele- 
phant to make them sport wreathed his proboscis 
lithe." The truth is, that he was out of his 
place in the House of Commons ; he was eminently 
qualified to shine as a man of genius, as the in- 
structor of mankind, as the brightest luminary of 
his age : but he had nothing in common with that 
motley crew of knights, citizens, and burgesses. 
He could not be said to be " native and endued unto 
that element." He was above it* and never 
appeared like himself, but when, forgetful of the 
idle clamours of party, and of the little views of 



232 ON THE CHARACTER 0^ BtmivE. 

little men, he applied to his country, and the en- 
lightened judgment of mankind. 

I am not going to make an idle panegyric on 
Burke (he has no need of it) ; but I cannot help 
looking upon him as the chief boast and ornament 
of the English House of Commons. What has 
been said of him is, I think, strictly true, that " he 
was the most eloquent man of his time : his wis- 
dom was greater than his eloquence/' The only 
public man that in my opinion can be put in any 
competition with him, is Lord Chatham : and he 
moved in a sphere so very remote, that it is almost 
impossible to compare them. But though it would 
perhaps be difficult to determine which of them 
excelled most in his particular way, there is nothing 
in the world more easy than to point out in what 
their peculiar excellences consisted. They were 
in every respect the reverse of each other. Chat- 
ham's eloquence was popular : his wisdom was alto- 
gether plain and practical. Burke's eloquence was 
that of the poet ; of the man of high and unbounded 
fancy : his wisdom was profound and contempla- 
tive. Chatham's eloquence was calculated to make 
men act; Burke's was calculated to make them 
think. Chatham could have roused the fury of a 
multitude, and wielded their physical energy as he 
pleased : Burke's eloquence carried conviction into 
the mind of the retired and lonely student, opened 



ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. £33 

the recesses of the human breast, and lighted up 
the face of nature around him. Chatham supplied 
his hearers with motives to immediate action : 
Burke furnished them with reasons for action which 
might have little effect upon them at the time, hut 
for which they would be the wiser and better all . 
their lives after. In research, in originality, in 
variety of knowledge, in richness of invention, in 
depth and comprehension of mind, Burke had as 
much the advantage of Lord Chatham as he was 
excelled by him in plain common sense, in strong 
feeling, in steadiness of purpose, in vehemence, in 
warmth, in enthusiasm, and energy of mind. 
Burke was the man of genius, of fine sense, and 
subtle reasoning; Chatham was a man of clear 
understanding, of strong sense, and violent pas- 
sions. Burke's mind was satisfied with speculation : 
Chatham's was essentially active : it could not rest 
without an object. The power which governed 
Burke's mind was his Imagination; that which 
gave its impetus to Chatham's was Will. The one 
was almost the creature of pure intellect, the other 
of physical temperament. 

There are two veiy different ends which a man 
of genius may propose to himself either in writing 
or speaking, and which will accordingly give birth 
to very different styles. He can have but one of 
these two objects ; either to enrich or strengthen 



234 ON THE CHAEACTEE OF BURKE. 

the mind ; either to furnish us with new ideas, to 
lead the mind into new trains of thought, to which 
it was before unused, and which it was incapable 
of striking out for itself ; or else to collect and em- 
body what we already knew, to rivet our old im- 
pressions more deeply ; to make what was before 
plain still plainer, and to give to that which was 
familiar all the effect of novelty. In the one case 
we receive an accession to the stock of our ideas ; 
in the other, an additional degree of life and energy 
is infused into them : our thoughts continue to 
flow in the same channels, but their pulse is quick- 
ened and invigorated. I do not know how to dis- 
tinguish these different styles better than by calling 
them severally the inventive and refined, or the 
impressive and vigorous styles. It is only the 
subject-matter of eloquence, however, which is 
allowed to be remote or obscure. The things in 
themselves may be subtle and recondite, but they 
must be dragged out of their obscurity and brought 
struggling to the light; they must be rendered 
plain and palpable (as far as it is in the wit of 
man to do so), or they are no longer eloquence. 
That which by its natural impenetrability, and in 
spite of every effort, remains dark and difficult, 
which is impervious to every ray, on which the 
imagination can shed no lustre, which can be 
clothed with no beauty, is not a subject for the ora- 



ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 235 

tor or poet. At the same time it cannot be ex- 
pected that abstract truths or profound observations 
should ever be placed in the same strong and daz- 
zling points of view as natural objects and mere 
matters of fact. It is enough if they receive a 
reflex and borrowed lustre, like that which cheers 
the first dawn of morning, where the effect of sur- 
prise and novelty gilds every object, and the joy of 
beholding another world gradually emerging out of 
the gloom of night, " a new creation rescued from 
his reign," fills the mind with a sober rapture. 
Philosophical eloquence is in writing what chiaro 
scuro is in painting ; he would be a fool who should 
object that the colours in the shaded part of a 
picture were not so bright as those on the opposite 
side ; the eye of the connoisseur receives an equal 
delight from both, balancing the want of brilliancy 
and effect with the greater delicacy of the tints, 
and difficulty of the execution. In judging of 
Burke, therefore, we are to consider, first, the style 
of eloquence which he adopted, and, secondly, the 
effects which he produced with it. If he did not 
produce the same effects on vulgar minds as some 
others have done, it was not for want of power, but 
from the turn and direction of his mind.- It was 
because his subjects, his ideas, his arguments, were 

* For instance : he produced less effect on the mob that 
compose the English House of Commons than Chatham or 
Pox, or even Pitt. 



236 ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 

less vulgar. The question is not whether he 
brought certain truths equally home to us, but how 
much nearer he brought them than they were be- 
fore. In my opinion, he united the two extremes 
of refinement and strength in a higher degree than 
any other writer whatever. 

The subtlety of his mind was undoubtedly that 
which rendered Burke a less popular writer and 
speaker than he otherwise would have been. It 
weakened the impression of his observations upon 
others, but I cannot admit that it weakened the ob- 
servations themselves ; that it took anything from 
their real weight or solidity, Coarse minds think all 
that is subtle, futile : that because it is not gross and 
obvious and palpable to the senses, it is therefore 
light and frivolous, and of no importance in the real 
affairs of life ; thus making their own confined un- 
derstandings the measure of truth, and supposing 
that whatever they do not distinctly perceive, is 
nothing. Seneca, who was not one of the vulgar, 
also says, that subtle truths are those which have 
the least substance in them, and consequently ap- 
proach nearest to nonentity. But for my own part 
I cannot help thinking that the most important 
truths must be the most refined and subtle ; for 
that very reason, that they must comprehend a 
great number of particulars, and instead of refer- 
ring to any distinct or positive fact, must point out 
the combined effects of an extensive chain of causes, 



ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 237 

operating gradually, remotely, and collectively, and 
therefore imperceptibly. General principles are 
not the less true or important because from their 
nature they elude immediate observation ; they are 
like the air, which is not the less necessary because 
we neither see nor feel it, or like that secret influ- 
ence which binds the world together, and holds the 
planets in their orbits. The very same persons 
who are the most forward to laugh at all systematic 
reasoning as idle and impertinent, you will the 
next moment hear exclaiming bitterly against the 
baleful effects of new-fangled systems of philosophy, 
or gravely descanting on the immense importance 
of instilling sound principles of morality into the 
mind. It would not be a bold conjecture, but an 
obvious truism, to say, that all the great, changes 
which have been brought about in the mortal world, 
either for the better or worse, have been introduced 
not by the bare statement of facts, which are things 
already known, and which must always operate 
nearly in the same manner, but by the develop- 
ment of certain opinions and abstract principles of 
reasoning on life and manners, on the origin of soci- 
ety and man's nature in general, which being obscure 
and uncertain, vary from time to time, and produce 
corresponding changes in the human mind. They 
are the wholesome dew and rain, or the mildew and 
pestilence that silently destroy. To this principle 



238 ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 

of generalization all wise lawgivers, and the systems 
of philosophers, owe their influence. 

It has always been with me a test of the sense 
and candour of any one belonging to the opposite 
party, whether he allowed Burke to be a great man. 
Of all the persons of this description that I have 
ever known, I never met with above one or two 
who would make this concession ; whether it was 
that party feelings ran too high to admit of any 
real candour, or whether it was owing to an essen- 
tial vulgarity in their habits of thinking, they all 
seemed to be of opinion that he was a wild enthu- 
siast, or a hollow sophist, who was to be answered 
by bits of facts, by smart logic, by shrewd questions, 
and idle songs. They looked upon him as a man 
of disordered intellects, because he reasoned in a 
style to which they had not been used, and w T hich 
confounded their dim perceptions. If you said that 
though you differed with him in sentiment, yet you 
thought him an admirable reasoner, and a close 
observer of human nature, you were answered with 
a loud laugh, and some hackneyed quotation. 
" Alas ! Leviathan was not so tamed ! " They did 
not know whom they had to contend with. The 
corner-stone, which the builders rejected, became 
the head-corner, though to the Jews a stumbling- 
block, and to the Greeks foolishness; for indeed 
I cannot discover that he was much better under- 



ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 239 

stood by those of his own party, if we may judge 
from the little affinity there is between his mode of 
reasoning and theirs. — The simple clue to all his 
reasonings on politics is, I think, as follows. He 
did not agree with some writers, that that mode of 
government is necessarily the best which is the 
cheapest. He saw in the construction of society 
other principles at work, and other capacities of 
fulfilling the desires, and perfecting the nature of 
man, besides those of securing the equal enjoyment 
of the means of animal life, and doing this at as 
little expense as possible. He thought that the 
wants and happiness of men were not to be provided 
for, as we provide for those of a herd of cattle, 
merely by attending to their physical necessities. 
He thought more nobly of his fellows. He knew 
that man had affections and passions and powers of 
imagination, as well as hunger and thirst, and the 
sense of heat and cold. He took his idea of poli- 
tical society from the partem of private life, wishing, 
as he himself expresses it, to incorporate the do- 
mestic charities with the orders of the state, and to 
blend them together. He strove to establish an 
analogy between the compact that binds together 
the community at large, and that which binds 
together the several families that compose it. He 
knew that the rules that form the basis of private 
morality are not founded in reason, that is, in the 



240 ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 

abstract properties of those things which are the 
subjects of them, but in the nature of man, and his 
capacity of being affected by certain things from 
habit, from imagination, and sentiment, as well as 
from reason. 

Thus, the reason why a man ought to be attached 
to his wife and children is not, surely, that they are 
better than others (for in this case every one else 
ought to be of the same opinion), but because he 
must be chiefly interested in those things which 
are nearest to him, and with which he is best ac- 
quainted, since his understanding cannot reach 
equally to every thing ; because he must be most 
attached to those objects which he has known the 
longest, and which by their situation have actually 
affected him the most, not those which in them- 
selves are the most affecting, whether they have 
ever made any impression on him or no ; that is, 
because he is by his nature the creature of habit 
and feeling, and because it is reasonable that he 
should act in conformity to his nature. Burke was 
so far right in saying that it is no objection to an 
institution, that it is founded in 'prejudice, but the 
contrary, if that prejudice is natural and right; 
that is, if it arises from those circumstances which 
are properly subjects of feeling and association, not 
from any defect or perversion of the understanding 
in those things which fall strictly under its juris- 



ON THE CHAEACTER OF BURKE. 241 

diction. On this profound maxim lie took his 
stand. Thus he contended, that the prejudice in 
favour of nobility was natural and proper, and fit to 
be encouraged by the positive institutions of so- 
ciety ; not on account of the real or personal merit 
of the individuals, but because such an institution 
has a tendency to enlarge and raise the mind, to 
keep alive the memory of past greatness, to con- 
nect the different ages of the world together, to 
carry back the imagination over a long tract of time, 
and feed it with the contemplation of remote events : 
because it is natural to think highly of that which 
inspires us with high thoughts, which has been 
connected for many generations with splendour, 
and affluence, and dignity, and power, and privi- 
lege. He also conceived, that by transferring the 
lespect from the person to the thing, and thus ren- 
dering it steady and permanent, the mind would be 
habitually formed to sentiments of deference, at- 
tachment, and fealty, to whatever else demanded 
its respect : that it would be led to fix its view on 
what was elevated and lofty, and be weaned from 
that low and narrow jealousy which never willingly 
or heartily admits of any superiority in others, and 
is glad of every opportunity to bring down all excel- 
lence to a level with its own miserable standard. 
Nobility did not, therefore, exist to the prejudice of 
the other orders of the state, but by, and for them. 



242 ON THE CHAEACTER OF BUEKE. 

The inequality of the different orders of society did 
not destroy the unity and harmony of the whole. 
The health and well-being of the moral world was 
to be promoted by the same means as the beauty of 
the natural world ; by contrast, by change, by light 
and shade, by variety of parts, by order and pro- 
portion. To think of reducing all mankind to the 
same insipid level, seemed to him the same absur- 
dity as to destroy the inequalities of surface in a 
country, for the benefit of agriculture and com- 
merce. In short, he believed that the interests of 
men in society should be consulted, and their seve- 
ral stations and employments assigned, with a view 
to their nature, not as physical, but as moral beings 
so as to nourish their hopes, to lift their imagina- 
tion, to enliven then fancy, to rouse their activity 
to strengthen their virtue, and to furnish the great- 
est number of objects of pursuit and means of en- 
joyment to beings constituted as man is, consistently 
with the order and stability of the whole. 

The same reasoning might be extended farther. 
I do not say that his arguments are conclusive : 
but they are profound and true, as far as they go. 
There may be disadvantages and abuses necessarily 
interwoven with Iris scheme, or opposite advantages 
of infinitely greater value, to be derived from another 
order of things and state of society. This, however, 
does not invalidate either the truth or importance of 



ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 243 

Burke's reasoning ; since the advantages he points 
out as connected with the mixed form of govern- 
ment are really and necessarily inherent in it : 
since they are compatible, in the same degree, with 
no other; since the principle itself on which he 
rests his argument (whatever we may think of the 
application) is of the utmost weight and moment ; 
and since, on whichever side the truth lies, it is 
impossible to make a fair decision without having 
the opposite side of the question clearly and fully 
stated to us. This Burke has done in a masterly 
manner. He presents to you one view or face of 
society. Let him who thinks he can, give the 
reverse side with equal force, beauty, and clearness. 
It is said, I know, that truth is one ; but to this I 
cannot subscribe, for it appears to me that truth is 
many. There are as many truths as there are 
things and causes of action and contradictory prin- 
ciples at work in society. In making up the 
account of good and evil, indeed, the final result 
must be one way or the other ; but the particulars on 
which that result depends are infinite and various. 

It will be seen from what I have said, that I am 
very far from agreeing with those who think that 
Burke was a man without understanding, and a 
merely florid writer. There are two causes winch 
have given rise to this calumny ; namely, that nar- 
rowness of mind which leads men to suppose that 



244 ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 

the truth lies entirely on the side of their own 
opinions, and that whatever does not make for 
them is absurd and irrational ; secondly, a trick 
we have of confounding reason with judgment, and 
supposing that it is merely the province of the un- 
derstanding to pronounce sentence, and not to give 
evidence, or argue the case; in short, that it is a 
passive, not an active faculty. Thus there are per- 
sons who never run into any extravagance, because 
they are so buttressed up with the opinions of 
others on all sides, that they cannot lean much to 
one side or the other; they are so little moved 
with any kind of reasoning, that they remain at an 
equal distance from every extreme, and are never 
very far from the truth, because the slowness of 
their faculties will not suffer them to make much 
progress in error. These are persons of great 
judgment. The scales of the mind are pretty 
sure to remain even, when there is nothing in 
them. In this sense of the word, Burke must be 
allowed to have wanted judgment, by all those who 
think that he was wrong in his conclusions. The 
accusation of want of judgment, in fact, only means 
that you yourself are of a different opinion. But 
if in arriving at one error he discovered a hundred 
truths, I should consider myself a hundred times 
more indebted to him than if, stumbling on that 
which I consider as the right side of the question, 



ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 245 

he had committed a hundred absurdities in striving 
to establish his point. I speak of him now merely 
as an author, or as far as I and other readers are 
concerned with him ; at the same time, I should 
not differ from any one who may be disposed to 
contend that the consequences of his writings as- 
instruments of political power have been tre- 
mendous, fatal, such as no exertion of wit or 
knowledge or genius can ever counteract or 
atone for. 

Burke also gave a hold to his antagonists by 
mixing up sentiment and imagery with his reason- 
ing ; so that being unused to such a sight in the 
region of politics, they were deceived, and could 
not discern the fruit from the flowers. Gravity is 
the cloak of wisdom ; and those who have nothing 
else think it an insult to affect the one without the 
other, because it destroys the only foundation on 
which their pretensions are built. The easiest 
part of reason is dulness ; the generality of the 
w r orld are therefore concerned in discouraging any 
example of unnecessary brilliancy that might tend 
to show that the two things do not always go 
together. Burke in some measure dissolved the 
spell. It was discovered, that his gold was not the 
less valuable for being wrought into elegant shapes, 
and richly embossed with curious figures ; that the 
solidity of a building is not destroyed by adding to 



246 ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 

it beauty and ornament ; and that the strength of 
a man's understanding is not always to be esti- 
mated in exact proportion to his want of imagi- 
nation. His understanding was not the less real, 
because it was not the only faculty he possessed. 
He justified the description of the poet, — 

" How charming is divine philosophy ! 
Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, 
But musical as is Apollo's lute ! " 

Those who object to this union of grace and beauty 
with reason, are in fact weak-sighted people, who 
cannot distinguish the noble and majestic form of 
Truth from that of her sister Folly, if they are 
dressed both alike ! But there is always a differ- 
ence even in the adventitious ornaments they wear, 
which is sufficient to distinguish them. 

Burke was so far from being a gaudy or flowery 
miter, that he was one of the severest writers we 
have. His words are the most like things ; his 
style is the most strictly suited to the subject. He 
unites every extreme and every variety of compo- 
sition; the lowest and the meanest words and 
descriptions with the highest. He exults in the 
display of power, in showing the extent, the force, 
and intensity of his ideas ; he is led on by the 
mere impulse and vehemence of his fancy, not by 
the affectation of dazzling his readers by gaudy 



ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 247 

conceits or pompous images. He was completely 
carried away by bis subject. He had no other 
object but to produce the strongest impression on 
his reader, by giving the truest, the most charac- 
teristic, the fullest, and most forcible description of 
things, trusting to the power of his own mind to 
mould them into grace and beauty. He did not 
produce a splendid effect by setting fire to the light 
vapours that float in the regions of fancy, as the 
chemists make fine colours with phosphorus, but 
by the eagerness of his blows struck fire from the 
flint, and melted the hardest substances in the 
furnace of his imagination. The wheels of his 
imagination did not catch fire from the rottenness 
of the materials, but from the rapidity of their 
motion. One would suppose, to hear people talk 
of Burke, that his style was such as would have 
suited the " Lady's Magazine ;" soft, smooth, 
showy, tender, insipid, full of fine words, without 
any meaning. The essence of the gaudy or glitter- 
ing style consists in producing a momentary effect 
by fine words and images brought together, with- 
out order or connexion. Burke most frequently 
produced an effect by the remoteness and novelty 
of his combinations, by the force of contrast, by 
the striking manner in which the most opposite 
and unpromising materials were harmoniously 
blended together ; not by laying his hands on all 



248 ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 

the fine things he could think of, but by bringing 
together those things which he knew would blaze 
out into glorious light by their collision. The florid 
style is a mixture of affectation and common -place. 
Burke's was an union of untameable vigour and 
originality. 

Burke was not a verbose writer. If he some- 
times multiplies words, it is not for want of ideas, 
but because there are no words that fully express 
his ideas, and he tries to do it as well as he can by 
different ones. He had nothing of the set or formal 
style, the measured cadence, and stately phraseo- 
logy of Johnson, and most of our modern writers. 
This style, which is what we understand by the 
artificial, is all in one key. It selects a certain 
set of words to represent all ideas whatever, as the 
most dignified and elegant, and excludes all others 
as low and vulgar. The words are not fitted to 
the things, but the things to the words. Every- 
thing is seen through a false medium. It is put- 
ting a mask on the face of nature, w 7 hich may in- 
deed hide some specks and blemishes, but takes 
away all beauty, delicacy, and variety. It destroys 
all dignity or elevation, because nothing can be 
raised where all is on a level, and completely de- 
stroys all force r expression, truth, and character, 
by arbitrarily confounding the differences of things, 
and reducing everything to the same insipid 



ON THE CHAEACTER OF BUEKE. 249 

standard. To suppose that this stiff uniformity 
can add anything to real grace or dignity, is like 
supposing that the human body, in order to be per- 
fectly graceful, should never deviate from its up- 
right posture. Another mischief of this method is, 
that it confounds all ranks in literature. Where 
there is no room for variety, no discrimination, no 
nicety to be shown in matching the idea with its 
proper word, there can be no room for taste or 
elegance. A man must easily learn the art of 
writing, when every sentence is to be cast in the 
same mould : where he is only allowed the use of 
one word, he cannot choose wrong, nor will he be 
in much danger of making himself ridiculous by 
affectation or false glitter, when, whatever subject 
he treats of, he must treat of it in the same w r ay. 
This indeed is to wear golden chains for the sake 
of ornament. 

Burke w r as altogether free from the pedantry 
which I have here endeavoured to expose. His 
style w 7 as as original, as expressive, as rich and 
varied, as it was possible ; his combinations were 
as exquisite, as playful, as happy, as unexpected, as 
bold and daring, as his fancy. If anything, he 
ran into the opposite extreme of too great an in- 
equality, if truth and nature could ever be carried 
to an extreme. 

Those who are best acquainted with the writings 



250 ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 

and speeches of Burke will not think the praise I 
have here bestowed on them exaggerated. Some 
proof will be found of this in the following ex- 
tracts. But the full proof must be sought in his 
works at large, and particularly in the " Thoughts 
on the Discontents ;" in his " Reflections on the 
French Revolution;" in his " Letter to the Duke 
of Bedford;" and in the " Regicide Peace." The 
two last of these are perhaps the most remarkable 
of all his writings, from the contrast they afford to 
each other. The one is the most delightful 
exhibition of wild and brilliant fancy that is to be 
found in English prose, but it is too much like a 
beautiful picture painted upon gauze ; it wants some- 
thing to support it : the other is -without ornament, 
but it has all the solidity, the weight, the gravity 
of a judicial record. It seems to have been written 
with a certain constraint upon himself, and to show 
those who said he could not reason, that his argu- 
ments might be stripped of their ornaments without 
losing anything of their force. It is certainly, of 
all his works, that in which he has show T n most 
power of logical deduction, and the only one in 
which he has made any important use of facts. In 
general he certainly paid little attention to them : 
they were the playthings of his mind. He saw 
them as he pleased, not as they were ; with the 
eye of the philosopher or the poet, regarding them 



ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 251 

only in their general principle, or as they might 
serve to decorate his subject. This is the natural 
consequence of much imagination : things that are 
probable are elevated into the rank of realities. 
To those who can reason on the essences of things, 
or who can invent according to nature, the experi- 
mental proof is of little value. This was the case 
with Burke. In the presence instance, however, 
he seems to have forced his mind into the service 
of facts ; and he succeeded completely. His com- 
parison between our connexion with France or 
Algiers, and his account of the conduct of the war, 
are as clear, as convincing, as forcible examples of 
this kind of reasoning, as are anywhere to be met 
with. Indeed I do not think there is anything 
in Fox (whose mind was purely historical), or in 
Chatham (who attended to feelings more than facts), 
that will bear a comparison with them. 

Burke has been compared to Cicero — I do not 
know for what reason. Their excellences are as 
different, and indeed as opposite, as they can well be. 
Burke had not the polished elegance ; the glossy 
neatness, the artful regularity, the exquisite modu- 
lation of Cicero : he had a thousand times more 
richness and originality of mind, more strength and 
pomp of diction. 

It has been well observed, that the ancients had 
no word that properly expresses what we mean by 



252 ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 

the word genius. They perhaps had not the thing. 
Their minds appear to have been too exact, too 
retentive, too minute and subtle, too sensible to the 
external differences of things, too passive under 
their impressions, to admit of those bold and rapid 
combinations, those lofty flights of fancy, which, 
glancing from heaven to earth, unite the most 
opposite extremes, and draw the happiest illustra- 
tions from things the most remote. Their ideas 
were kept too confined and distinct by the material 
form or vehicle in which they were conveyed, to 
unite cordially together, or be melted down in the 
imagination. Their metaphors are taken from 
things of the same class, not from things of differ- 
ent classes ; the general analogy, not the individual 
feeling, directs them in their choice. Hence, as 
Dr Johnson observed, their similes are either repe- 
titions of the same idea, or so obvious and general 
as not to lend any additional force to it ; as when 
a huntress is compared to Diana, or a warrior 
rushing into battle to a lion rushing on his prey. 
Their forte was exquisite art and perfect imitation. 
Witness their statues and other things of the same 
kind. But they had not that high and enthusi- 
astic fancy which some of our own writers have 
shown. For the proof of this, let anyone compare 
Milton and Shakspeare with Homer and Sophocles, 
or Burke with Cicero. 



ON THE CHAHACTER OF BURKE. 253 

It may be asked whether Burke was a poet. He 
was so only in the general vividness of his fancy, 
and in richness of invention. There may be 
poetical passages in his works, but I certainly think 
that his writings in general are quite distinct from 
poetry ; and that for the reason before given, namely, 
that the subject-matter of them is not poetical. 
The finest part of them are illustrations or personi- 
fications of dry abstract ideas ;* and the union be- 
tween the idea and the illustration is not of that 
perfect and pleasing kind as to constitute poetry, 
or indeed to be admissible, but for the effect in- 
tended to be produced by it ; that is, by every 
means in our power to give animation and attrac- 
tion to subjects in themselves barren of ornament, 
but which at the same time are pregnant with the 
most important consequences, and in which the 
understanding and the passions are equally inter- 
ested. 

I have heard it remarked by a person, to w 7 hose 
opinion I would sooner submit than to a general 
council of critics, that the sound of Burke's prose 
is not musical ; that it wants cadence ; and that 
instead of being so lavish of his imagery as is gene- 
rally supposed, he seemed to him to be rather par- 

* As in the comparison of the British Constitution to 
the " proud keep of "Windsor," &c. ; the most splendid pas- 
sage in his works. 



254 ON THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 

simonious in the use of it, always expanding and 
making the most of his ideas. This may be true 
if we compare him with some of our poets, or per- 
haps with some of our early prose writers, hut not 
if we compare him with any of our political writers 
or parliamentary speakers. There are some very 
fine things of Lord Bolingbroke's on the same sub- 
jects, but not equal to Burke's. As for Junius, he 
is at the head of his class ; but that class is not the 
highest. He has been said to have more dignity 
than Burke. Yes — if the stalk of a giant is less 
dignified than the strut of a jyetit-maitre. I do not- 
mean to speak disrespectfully of Junius, but gran- 
deur is not the character of his composition ; and 
if it is not to be found in Burke, it is. to be found 
nowhere .- ; 
1807. 



ESSAY XIII. 
ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 



I shall begin with observing generally, that Mr 
Fox excelled all his contemporaries in the extent of 
his knowledge, in the clearness and distinctness of 
his views, in quickness of apprehension, in plain, 
practical common sense, in the full, strong, and 
absolute possession of his subject. A measure was 
no sooner proposed than he seemed to have an in- 
stantaneous and intuitive perception of its various 
bearings and consequences ; of the manner in which 
it would operate on the different classes of society, 
on commerce or agriculture, on our domestic or 
foreign policy ; of the difficulties attending its exe- 
cution ; in a word, of all its practical results, and 
the comparative advantages to be gained either by 
adopting or rejecting it. He was intimately ac- 
quainted with the interests of the different pails of 
the community, with the minute and complicated 
details of political economy, with our external rela- 
tions, with the views, the resources, and the maxims 



256 ON THE CHAEACTER OF FOX. 

of other states. He was master of all those facts 
and- circumstances which it was necessary to know 
in order to judge fairly and determine wisely ; and 
he knew them not loosely or lightly, hut in number, 
weight, and measure. He had also stored his me- 
mory by reading and general study, and improved 
his understanding by the lamp of history. He was 
well acquainted with the opinions and sentiments 
of the best authors, with the maxims of the most 
profound politicians, with the causes of the rise and 
fall of states, with the general passions of men, with 
the characters of different nations, and the laws and 
constitution of his own country. He was a man of 
large, capacious, powerful, and highly cultivated 
intellect. Xo man could know more than he knew; 
no man's knowledge could be more sound, more 
plain and useful ; no man's knowledge could lie in 
more connected and tangible masses ; no man could 
be more perfectly master of his ideas, could reason 
upon them more closely, or decide upon them more 
impartially. His mind was full, even to overflowing. 
He was so habitually conversant with the most intri- 
cate and comprehensive trains of thought, or such 
was the natural vigour and exuberance of his mind, 
that he seemed to recal them without any effort. 
His ideas quarrelled for utterance. So far from 
ever being at a loss for them, he was obliged rather 
to repress and rein them in, lest they should over- 



ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 257 

whelm and confound, instead of informing the 
understandings of his hearers. 

If to this we add the ardour and natural impe- 
tuosity of his mind, his quick sensibility, his eager- 
ness in the defence of truth, and his impatience of 
everything that looked like trick or artifice or affec- 
tation, we shall be able in some measure to account 
for the character of his eloquence. His thoughts 
came crowding in too fast for the slow and mecha- 
nical process of speech. What he saw in an instant, 
he could only express imperfectly, word by word, 
and sentence after sentence. He would, if he 
could, " have bared his swelling heart," and laid 
open at once the rich treasures of knowledge with 
which his bosom was fraught. It is no wonder 
that this difference between the rapidity of his 
feelings, and the forjnal round-about method of 
communicating them, should produce some disorder 
in his frame ; that the throng of his ideas should 
try to overleap the narrow boundaries which con- 
fined them, and tumultuously break down their 
prison-doors, instead of waiting to be let out one 
by one, and following patiently at due intervals and 
with mock dignity, like poor dependents, in the train 
of words : — that he should express himself in hur- 
ried sentences, in involuntary exclamations, by ve- 
hement gestures, by sudden starts and bursts of 
passion. Everything showed the agitation of his 



258 ON THE CHAKACTER OF FOX. 

mind. His tongue faltered, his voice became 
almost suffocated, and his face was bathed in tears. 
He was lost in the magnitude of his subject. He 
reeled and staggered under the load of feeling which 
oppressed him. He rolled like the sea beaten by 
a tempest. Whoever, having the feelings of a man, 
compared him at these times with his boasted rival, 
— his stiff, straight, upright figure, his gradual 
contortions, turning round as if moved by a pivot, 
his solemn pauses, his deep tones, "w T hose sound 
reverbed their own hollowness," must have said, 
This is a man ; that is an automaton. If Fox had 
needed grace, he would have had it ; but it was not 
the character of his mind, nor would it have suited 
with the style of his eloquence. It was Pitt's 
object to smooth over the abruptness and intrica- 
cies of his argument by the gracefulness of his 
manner, and to fix the attention of his hearers on 
the pomp and sound of his words. Lord Chatham, 
again, strove to command others ; he did not try to 
convince them, but to overpower their understand- 
ings by the greater strength and vehemence of his 
own ; to awe them by a sense of personal superior- 
ity : and he therefore was obliged to assume a lofty 
and dignified manner. It was to him they bowed, 
not to truth ; and whatever related to himself, must 
therefore have a tendency to inspire respect and 
admiration. Indeed, he would never have at- 



ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 259 

tempted to gain that ascendant over men's minds 
that he did, if either his mind or body had been 
different from what they were ; if his temper had 
not urged him to control and command others, or 
if his personal advantages had not enabled him to 
secure that kind of authority which he coveted. 
But it would have been ridiculous in Fox to have 
affected either the smooth plausibility, the stately 
gravity of the one, or the proud, domineering, 
imposing dignity of the other ; or even if he could 
have succeeded, it would only have injured the 
effect of his speeches.* What he had to rely on 
was the strength, the solidity of his ideas, his com- 
plete and thorough knowledge of his subject. It 
was his business therefore to fix the attention of his 
hearers, not on himself, but on his subject ; to rivet 
it there, to hurry it on from words to things : — the 
only circumstance of which they required to be con- 
vinced with respect to himself, was the sincerity of 

* There is an admirable, judicious, and truly useful 
remark in the preface to Spenser (not by Dr Johnson, for 
he left Spenser out of his poets, but by one Upton), that 
the question was not whether a better poem might not have 
been written on a different plan, but whether Spenser 
would have written a better one on a different plan. I wish 
to apply this to Fox's ungainly manner. I do not mean to 
say, that his manner was the best possible (for that would 
be to say that he was the greatest man conceivable), but 
that it was the best for him. 



260 ON THE CHAKACTEB OF FOX. 

his opinions ; and this would be best done by the 
earnestness of his manner, by giving a loose to his 
feelings, and by showing the most perfect forgetful- 
ness of himself, and of what others thought of him. 
The moment a man shows you either by affected 
words or looks or gestures, that he is thinking of 
himself, and you, that he is trying either to please 
or terrify you into compliance, there is an end at 
once to that kind of eloquence which owes its effect 
to the force of truth, and to your confidence in the 
sincerity of the speaker. It was, however, to the 
confidence inspired by the earnestness and sim- 
plicity of his manner, that Mr Fox was indebted 
for more than half the effect of his speeches. 
Some others might possess nearly as much in- 
formation, as exact a knowledge of the situation 
and interests of the country; but they wanted 
that zeal, that animation, that enthusiasm, that 
deep sense of the importance of the subject, 
which removes all doubt or suspicion from the 
miuds of the hearers, and communicates its own 
warmth to every breast. We may convince by ar- 
gument alone ; but it is by the interest we discover 
in the success of our reasonings, that we persuade 
others to feel and act with us. There are two circum- 
stances which Fox's speeches and Lord Chatham's 
had in common : they are alike distinguished by a 
kind of plain downright common sense, and by the 



ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 261 

vehemence of their manner. But still there is a 
great difference between them, in both these re- 
spects. Fox in his opinions was governed by facts 
— Chatham was more influenced by the feelings of 
others respecting those facts. Fox endeavoured to 
find out what the consequences of any measure 
would be ; Chatham attended more to what people 
would think of it. Fox appealed to the practical 
reason of mankind ; Chatham to popular prejudice. 
The one repelled the encroachments of power by 
supplying his hearers with arguments against it ; 
the other by rousing their passions and arming 
their resentment against those who would rob them 
of their birthright. Their vehemence and impetu- 
osity arose also from very different feelings. In 
Chatham it was pride, passion, self-will, impatience 
of control, a determination to have his own way, to 
carry everything before him ; in Fox it was pure 
good nature, a sincere love of truth, an ardent 
attachment to what he conceived to be right ; an 
anxious concern for the welfare and liberties of 
mankind. Or if we suppose that ambition had 
taken a strong hold of both their minds, yet their 
ambition was of a very different kind : in the one 
it was the love of power, in the other it was the 
love of fame. Nothing can be more opposite than 
these two principles, both in their origin and ten- 
dency. The one originates in a selfish, haughty, 



262 ON THE CHAEACTEE OF FOX. 

domineering spirit ; the other in a social and gene- 
rous sensibility, desirous of the love and esteem of 
others, and anxiously bent upon gaining merited 
applause. The one grasps at immediate power by 
any means within its reach ; the other, if it does 
not square its actions by the rules of virtue, at 
least refers them to a standard which comes the 
nearest to it — the disinterested applause of our 
country, and the enlightened judgment of posterity. 
The love of fame is consistent with the steadiest 
attachment to principle, and indeed strengthens 
and supports it ; whereas the love of power, where 
this is the ruling passion, requires the sacrifice of 
principle, at every turn, and is inconsistent even 
with the shadow of it. I do not mean to say that 
Fox had no love of power, or Chatham no love of 
fame (this would be reversing all we know of hu- 
man nature), but that the one principle predomi- 
nated in the one, and the other in the other. My 
reader will do me great injustice if he supposes 
that in attempting to describe the characters of 
different speakers by contrasting their general 
qualities, I mean anything beyond the more or less : 
but it is necessaiy to describe those qualities simply 
and in the abstract, in order to make the distinction 
intelligible. Chatham resented any attack made 
upon the cause of liberty, of which he was the 
avowed champion, as an indignity offered to him- 



ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 263 

self. Fox felt it as a stain upon the honour of his 
country, and as an injury to the rights of his fellow 
citizens. The one was swayed by his own passions 
and purposes, with very little regard to the conse- 
quences ; the sensibility of the other was roused, 
and his passions kindled into a generous flame, by 
a real interest in whatever related to the welfare of 
mankind, and by an intense and earnest contem- 
plation of the consequences of the measures he op- 
posed. It was this union of the zeal of the patriot 
with the enlightened knowledge of the statesman, 
that gave to the eloquence of Fox its more than 
mortal energy; that warmed, expanded, penetrated 
every bosom. He relied on the force of truth and 
nature alone; the refinements of philosophy, the 
pomp and pageantry of the imagination were for- 
gotten, or seemed light and frivolous ; the fate of 
nations, the welfare of millions, hung suspended as 
he spoke ; a torrent of manly eloquence poured from 
his heart, bore down everything in its course, and 
surprised into a momentary sense of human feeling 
the breathing corpses, the wire -moved puppets, the 
stuffed figures, the flexible machinery, the " deaf 
and dumb things " of a court. 

I find (I do not know how the reader feels) that 
it is difficult to write a character of Fox without 
running into insipidity or extravagance. And the 
reason of this is, there are no splendid contrasts, no 



264 ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 

striking irregularities, no curious distinctions to work 
upon; no "jutting frieze, buttress, nor coigne of 
Vantage," for the imagination to take hold of. It 
was a plain marble slab, inscribed in plain legible 
characters, without either hieroglyphics or carving. 
There was the same directness and manly simpli- 
city in everything that he did. The whole of his 
character may indeed be summed up in two words 
— strength and simplicity. Fox was in the class of 
common men, but he was the first in that class. 
Though it is easy to describe the differences of 
things, nothing is more difficult than to describe 
their degrees or quantities. In what I am going 
to say, I hope I shall not be suspected of a design 
to under-rate his powers of mind, when in fact I 
am only trying to ascertain their nature and direc- 
tion. The degree and extent to which he possessed 
them can only be known by reading, or indeed by 
having heard his speeches. 

His mind, as I have already said, was, I con- 
ceive, purely historical: and having said this, I 
have I believe said all. But perhaps it will be 
necessary to explain a little farther what I mean. 
I mean, then, that his memory was in an extraor- 
dinary degree tenacious of facts ; that they were 
crowded together in his mind without the least 
perplexity or confusion ; that there was no chain of 
consequences too vast for his powers of comprehen- 



ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 265 

sion ; that the different parts and ramifications of 
his subject were never so involved and intricate 
but that they were easily disentangled in the 
clear prism of his understanding. The basis 
of his wisdom was experience : he not only knew 
what had happened, but by an exact knowledge 
of the real state of things, he could always tell 
what in the common course of events would hap- 
pen in future. The force of his mind was exerted 
on facts : as long as he could lean directly upon 
these, as long as he had the actual objects to refer 
to, to steady himself by, he could analyse, he could 
combine, he could compare and reason upon them, 
with the utmost exactness ; but he could, not reason 
out of them. He was what is understood by a 
matter-of-fact reasoner. He was better acquainted 
with the concrete masses of things, their substantial 
forms and practical connexions, than with their 
abstract nature or general definitions. He was a 
man of extensive information, of sound knowledge, 
and clear understanding, rather than the acute 
observer or profound thinker. He was the man of 
business, the accomplished statesman, rather than 
the philosopher. His reasonings were, generally 
speaking, calculations of certain positive results, 
which, the data being given, must follow as mat- 
ters of course, rather than unexpected and remote 
truths drawn from a deep insight into human na- 



266 ON THE CHAKACTER OF FOX. 

ture, and the subtle application of general princi- 
ples to particular cases. They consisted chiefly 
in the detail and combination of a vast number of 
items in an account, worked by the known rules of 
political arithmetic ; not in the discovery of bold, 
comprehensive, and original theorems in the sci- 
ence. They were rather acts of memory, of conti- 
nued attention, of a power of bringing all his ideas 
to bear at once upon a single point, than of reason 
or invention. He was the attentive observer who 
watches the various effects and successive move- 
ments of a machine already constructed, and can 
tell how to manage it while it goes on as it has 
always done ; but who knows little or nothing of 
the principles on which it is constructed, nor how 
to set it right, if it becomes disordered, except by 
the most common and obvious expedients. Burke 
was to Fox what the geometrician is to the me- 
chanic. Much has been said of the "prophetic 
mind" of Mr Fox. The same epithet has been 
applied to Mr Burke, till it has become proverbial. 
It has, I think, been applied without much reason 
to either. Fox wanted the scientific part. Burke 
wanted the practical. Fox had too little imagina- 
tion, Burke had too much : that is, he was careless of 
facts, and was led away by his passions to look at 
one side of a question only. He had not that fine 
sensibility to outward impressions, that nice tact 



ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 267 

of circumstances, which is necessary to the con- 
summate politician. Indeed, his wisdom was 
more that of the legislator than of the active 
statesman. They hoth tried their strength in the 
Ulysses' bow of politicians, the French Revolution : 
and they were both foiled. Fox indeed foretold 
the success of the French in combating with 
foreign powers. But this was no morjB than what 
every friend of the liberty of France foresaw or 
foretold as well as he. All those on the same side 
of the question were inspired with the same sagacity 
on the subject. Burke, on the other hand, seems 
to have been before-hand with the public in fore- 
boding the internal disorders that would attend the 
Revolution, and its ultimate failure ; but then it is 
at least a question whether he did not make good 
his own predictions : and certainly he saw into the 
causes and connexion of events much more clearly 
after they had happened than before. He was 
however undoubtedly a profound commentator on 
that apocalyptical chapter in the history of human 
nature, which I do not think Fox was. Whether 
led to it by the events or not, he saw thoroughly 
into the principles that operated to produce them ; 
and he pointed them out to others in a manner 
which could not be mistaken. I can conceive of 
Burke, as the genius of the storm, perched over 
Paris, the centre and focus of anarchy, (so he 



268 ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 

would have us believe) hovering " with mighty 
wings outspread over the abyss, and rendering it 
pregnant," watching the passions of men gradually 
unfolding themselves in new situations, penetrating 
those hidden motives which hurried them from one 
extreme into another, arranging and analysing the 
principles that alternately pervaded the vast cbaotic 
mass, and extracting the elements of order and the 
cement of social life from the decomposition of all 
society : while Charles Fox in the meantime dog- 
ged the heels of the Allies, (all the way calling out 
to them to stop) with his sutler's bag, his muster- 
roll, and army estimates at his back. He said, 
You have only fifty thousand troops, the enemy 
have a hundred thousand : this place is dismantled, 
it can make no resistance : your troops were beaten 
last year, they must therefore be disheartened this. 
This is excellent sense and sound reasoning, but I 
do not see what it has to do with philosophy, But 
why was it necessary that Fox should be a philoso- 
pher ? Why, in the first place, Burke was a phi- 
losopher, and Fox, to keep up with him, must be 
so too. In the second place, it was necessary, in 
order that his indiscreet admirers, who have no 
idea of greatness but as it consists in certain names 
and pompous titles, might be able to talk big about 
their patron. It is a bad compliment we pay to 
our idol when we endeavour to make him out some- 



ON THE CHARACTEB OF FOX. 269 

thing different from himself ; it shows that we are 
not satisfied with what he is. I have heard it 
said that he had as much imagination as Burke. 
To this extravagant assertion I shall make what I 
conceive to be a very cautious and moderate an- 
swer : that Burke was as superior to Fox in this 
respect as Fox perhaps was to the first person you 
would meet in the street. There is in fact hardly 
an instance of imagination to be met with in any 
of his speeches ; what there is, is of the rhetorical 
kind. I may, however, be wrong. He might excel 
as much in profound thought, and richness of fancy, 
as he did in other things ; though I cannot per- 
ceive it. However, when any one publishes a book 
called The Beauties of Fox, containing the origi- 
nal reflections, brilliant passages, lofty metaphors, 
&c, to be found in his speeches, without the detail 
or connexion, I shall be very ready to give the 
point up. 

In logic Fox was inferior to Pitt — indeed, in all 
the formalities of eloquence, in which the latter 
excelled as much as he was deficient in the soul or 
substance. When I say that Pitt was superior to 
Fox in logic, I mean that he excelled him in the 
formal division of the subject, in always keeping 
it in view, as far as he chose ; in being able to 
detect any deviation from it in others ; in the ma- 
nagement of his general topics ; in being aware of 



270 ON THE CHAEACTER OF FOX. 

the mood and figure in which the argument must 
move, with all its nonessentials, dilemmas, and 
alternatives; in never committing himself, nor 
ever suffering his antagonist to occupy an inch of 
the plainest ground, but under cover of a syllogism. 
He had more of " the dazzling fence of argument," 
as it has been called. He was, in short, better at 
his weapon. But then, unfortunately, it was only 
a dagger of lath that the wind could turn aside ; 
whereas Fox wore a good trusty blade, of solid 
metal, and real execution, 

I shall not trouble myself to inquire whether Fox 
was a man of strict virtue and principle ; or in 
other words, how far he was one of those who screw 
themselves up to a certain pitch of ideal perfection, 
who, as it were, set themselves in the stocks of 
morality, and make mouths at their own situation. 
He was not one of that tribe, and shall not be tried 
by their self-denying ordinances. But he was 
endowed with one of the most excellent natures 
that ever fell to the lot of any of Gods creatures. 
It has been said, that " an honest man's the noblest 
work of God." There is indeed a purity, a recti- 
tude, an integrity of heart, a freedom from every 
selfish bias, and sinister motive, a manly simplicity 
and noble disinterestedness of feeling, which is in 
my opinion to be preferred before every other gift of 
nature or art. There is a greatness of soul that is 



ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 271 

superior to all the brilliancy of the understanding 
This strength of moral character, which is not only 
a more valuable but a rarer quality than strength 
of understanding, (as we are oftener led astray by 
the narrowness of our feelings, than want of know- 
ledge) Fox possessed in the highest degree. He 
was superior to every kind of jealousy, of suspi- 
cion, of malevolence ; to every narrow and sordid 
motive. He was perfectly above every species of 
duplicity, of low art and cunning. He judged 
of everything in the downright sincerity of his 
nature, without being able to impose upon him- 
self by any hollow disguise, or to lend his sup- 
port to anything unfair or dishonourable. He 
had an innate love of truth, of justice, of pro- 
bity, of whatever was generous or liberal. Nei- 
ther his education, nor his connexions, nor his 
situation in life, nor the low intrigues and viru- 
lence of party, could ever alter the simplicity of 
his taste, nor the candid openness of his nature. 
There was an elastic force about his heart, a fresh- 
ness of social feeling, a warm glowing humanity, 
which remained unimpaired to the last. He was 
by nature a gentleman. By this I mean that he 
felt a certain deference and respect for the person 
of every man ; he had an unaffected frankness and 
benignity in his behaviour to others, the utmost 
liberality in judging of their conduct and motives. 



272 ON THE CHARACTEB OF FOX. 

A refined humanity constitutes the character of a 
gentleman. He was the true friend of his country, 
as far as it is possible for a statesman to be so. 
But his love of his country did not consist in his 
hatred of the rest of mankind. I shall conclude 
this account by repeating what Burke said of him 
at a time when his testimony was of the most value. 
" To his great and masterly understanding he 
joined the utmost possible degree of moderation : 
he was of the most artless, candid, open, and bene- 
volent disposition ; disinterested in the extreme ; 
of a temper mild and placable, even to a fault ; and 
without one drop of gall in his constitution/' 
1807. 



ESSAY XIV. 
ON THE CHAEACTEE OF ME PITT. 



The character of Mr Pitt was, perhaps, one of the 
most singular that ever existed. With few talents, 
and fewer virtues, he acquired and preserved in 
one of the most trying situations, and in spite of 
all opposition, the highest reputation for the pos- 
session of every moral excellence, and as having 
carried the attainments of eloquence and wisdom 
as far as human abilities could go. This he did 
(strange as it appears) by a negation (together with 
the common virtues) of the common vices of human 
nature, and by the complete negation of every 
other talent that might interfere with the only 
one which he possessed in a supreme degree, 
and which indeed may be made to include the 
appearance of all others — an artful use of words, 
and a certain dexterity of logical arrangement. 
In these alone his power consisted; and the de- 
fect of all other qualities which usually consti- 
tute greatness, contributed to the more complete 

L 



274 ON THE CHARACTER OF MR PITT. 

success of these. Having no strong feelings, no 
distinct perceptions, his mind having no link, as it 
were, to connect it with the world of external 
nature, every subject presented to him nothing 
more than a tabula rasa, on which he was at liberty 
to lay whatever colouring of language he pleased ; 
having no general principles, no comprehensive 
views of things, no moral habits of thinking, no 
system of action, there was nothing to hinder him 
from pursuing any particular purpose, by any 
means that offered; having never any plan, he 
could not be convicted of inconsistency, and his own 
pride and obstinacy were the only rules of his con- 
duct. Having no insight into human nature, no 
sympathy with the passions of men, or apprehen- 
sion of their real designs, he seemed perfectly in- 
sensible to the consequences of things, and would 
believe nothing till it actually happened. The fog 
and haze in which he saw everything communi- 
cated itself to others ; and the total indistinctness 
and uncertainty of his own ideas tended to confound 
the perceptions of his hearers more effectually than 
the most ingenious misrepresentation could have 
done. Indeed, in defending his conduct he never 
seemed to consider himself as at all responsible for 
the success of his measures, or to suppose that 
future events were in our own power ; but that as 
the best-laid schemes might fail, and there was no 



ON THE CHAKACTER OF MR PITT. $75 

providing against all possible contingencies, this was 
a sufficient excuse for our plunging at once into any- 
dangerous or absurd enterprise, without the least 
regard to consequences. His reserved logic con- 
fined itself solely to the possible and the impossible ; 
and he appeared to regard the probable and im- 
probable, the only foundation of moral prudence or 
political wisdom, as beneath the notice of a pro- 
found statesman ; as if the pride of the human in- 
tellect were concerned in never entrusting itself 
with subjects, where it may be compelled to 
acknowledge its weakness,* From his manner of 

* One instance may serve as an example for all the rest ; 
— When Mr Fox last summer (1805) predicted the failure 
of the new confederacy against France, from a considera- 
tion of the circumstances and relative situation of both 
parties, that is, from an exact knowledge of the actual 
state of things, Mr Pitt contented himself with answering 
— and, as in the blindness of his infatuation, he seemed to 
think quite satisfactorily, — " That he could not assent to 
the honourable gentleman's reasoning, for that it went to 
this, that we were never to attempt to mend the situation 
of our affairs, because in so doing we might possibly make 
them worse." No ; it was not on account of this abstract 
possibility in human affairs, or because we were not abso- 
lutely sure of succeeding (for that any child might know), 
but because it was in the highest degree probable, or morally 
certain, that the scheme would fail, and leave us in a worse 
situation than we were before, that Mr Fox disapproved of 
the attempt. There is in this a degree of weakness and 



276 ON THE CHAEACTEK OF MR PITT. 

reasoning, he seemed not to have believed that the 
truth of his statements depended on the reality of 
the facts, but that the things depended on the 
order in which he arranged them in. words : you 
would not suppose him to be agitating a serious 
question which had real grounds to go upon, but to 
be declaiming upon an imaginary thesis, proposed 
as an exercise in the schools. He never set him- 
self to examine the force of the objections that were 
brought against his measures, or attempted to 
establish these upon clear, solid grounds of his 
own ; but constantly contented himself with first 
gravely stating the logical form, or dilemma, 
to which the question reduced itself, and then, 
after having declared his opinion, proceeded to 
amuse his hearers by a series of rhetorical common- 
imbecility, a defect of understanding bordering on idiotism, 
a fundamental ignorance of the first principles of human 
reason and prudence, that in & great minister is utterly as- 
tonishing, and almost incredible. Nothing could ever 
drive him out of his dull forms, and naked generalities; 
which, as they are susceptible neither of degree nor varia- 
tion, are therefore equally applicable to every emergency 
that can happen : and in the most critical aspect of affairs, 
he saw nothing but the same flimsy web of remote possi- 
bilities and metaphysical uncertainty. In his mind the 
wholesome pulp of practical wisdom and salutary advice 
was immediately converted into the dry chaff and husks 
of a miserable logic. 



ON THE CHARACTER OF MR PITT. £77 

places, connected together in grave, sonorous, and 
elaborately constructed periods, without ever show- 
ing their real application to the subject in dispute. 
Thus, if any member of the Opposition disapproved 
of any measure, and enforced his objections by 
pointing out the many evils with which it was 
fraught, or the difficulties attending its execution, 
his only answer was, " That it was true there might 
he inconveniences attending the measure proposed, 
but we were to rememher, that every expedient 
that could be devised might be said to be nothing 
more than a choice of difficulties, and that all that 
human prudence could do was to consider on which 
side the advantages lay ; that for his part, he con- 
ceived that the present measure was attended with 
more advantages and fewer disadvantages than any 
other that could be adopted ; that if we were 
diverted from our object by every appearance of 
difficulty, the wheels of government would be 
clogged by endless delays and imaginary grievances ; 
that most of the objections made to the measure 
appeared to him to be trivial, others of them un- 
founded and improbable ; or that if a scheme free 
from all these objections could be proposed, it might 
after all prove inefficient ; while, in the mean time, 
a material object remained unprovided for, or the 
opportunity of action was lost." This mode of 
reasoning is admirably described by Hobbes, in 
speaking of the writings of some of the Schoolmen, 



278 ON THE CHAEACTER OF MR PITT. 

of whom he says, that " They had learned the trick 
of imposing what they list upon their readers, and 
declining the force of true reason by verbal forks : 
that is, distinctions which signify nothing, but serve 
only to astonish the multitude of ignorant men." 
That what I have here stated comprehends the 
whole force of his mind, which consisted solely in 
this evasive dexterity and perplexing formality, 
assisted by a copiousness of words and common- 
place topics, will, I think, be evident to any one who 
carefully looks over his speeches, undazzled by the 
reputation or personal influence of the speaker. 
It will be in vain to look in them for any of the 
common proofs of human genius or wisdom. He 
has not left behind him a single memorable saying — 
not one profound maxim — one solid observation- 
one forcible description — one beautiful thought — 
one humorous picture — one affecting sentiment.* 



* I do remember one passage which has some meaning 
in it. At the time of the Regency Bill, speaking of the 
proposal to take the King's servants from him, he says, 
" What must that great personage feel when he waked from 
the trance of his faculties, and asked for his attendants, if 
he were told that his subjects had taken advantage of his 
momentary absence of mind, and stripped him of the sym- 
bols of his personal elevation." There is some grandeur in 
this. His admirers should have it inscribed in letters of 
gold ; for they will not find another instance of the same 
kind. 



ON THE CHAEACTEE OF ME PITT. 279 

He has made no addition whatever to the stock of 
human knowledge. He did not possess any one 
of those faculties which contribute to the instruc- 
tion and delight of mankind — depth of understand- 
ing, imagination, sensibility, wit, vivacity, clear 
and solid judgment. But it may be asked, If these 
qualities are not to be found in him, where are we 
to look for them ? And I may be required to 
point out instances of them. I shall answer, then, 
that he had none of the profound legislative 
wisdom, piercing sagacity, or rich, impetuous, 
high- wrought imagination of Burke ; the manly 
eloquence, strong sense, exact knowledge, vehe- 
mence, and natural simplicity of Fox : the ease, 
brilliancy, and acuteness of Sheridan. It is not 
merely that he had not all these qualities in 
the degree that they were severally possessed by 
his rivals, but he had not any of them in any 
striking degree. His reasoning is a technical ar- 
rangement of unmeaning common-places; his 
eloquence merely rhetorical ; his style monotonous 
and artificial. If he could pretend to any one 
excellence in an eminent degree, it was to taste 
in composition. There is certainly nothing low, 
nothing puerile, nothing far-fetched or abrupt in 
his speeches ; there is a kind of faultless regularity 
pervading them throughout ; but in the confined, 
mechanical, passive mode of eloquence which he 



280 ON THE CHAEACTEB OF MR PITT, 

adopted, it seemed rather more difficult to commit 
errors than to avoid them. A man who is deter- 
mined never to move out of the beaten road, cannot 
lose his way. However, habit, joined to the pecu- 
liar mechanical memory which he possessed, carried 
this correctness to a degree which, in an extempo- 
raneous speaker, was almost miraculous ; he perhaps 
hardly ever uttered a sentence that was not perfectly 
regular and connected. In this respect he not only 
had the advantage over his own contemporaries, 
but perhaps no one that ever lived equalled him in 
this singular faculty. But for this, he would always 
have passed for a common man ; and to this the 
constant sameness, and, if I may so say, vulgarity 
of his ideas, must have contributed not a little, as 
there was nothing to distract his mind from this one 
object of his unintermitted attention ; and as even 
in his choice of words he never aimed at anything 
more than a certain general propriety, and stately 
uniformity of style. His talents were exactly fitted 
for the situation in which he was placed ; where it 
was his business, not to overcome others, but to 
avoid being overcome. He was able to baffie op- 
position, not from strength or firmness, but from 
the evasive ambiguity and impalpable nature of his 
resistance, which gave no hold to the rude grasp of 
his opponents : no force could bind the loose phan- 
tom, and his mind (though " not matchless, and 



ON THE CHARACTER OF MR PITT. 281 

his pride humbled by such rebuke"), soon rose from 
defeat unhurt, 

" And in its liquid texture mortal wound 
Receiv'd no more than can the fluid air/'* 



* I will only add, that it is the property of true genius 
to force the admiration even of enemies. No one was ever 
hated or envied for his powers of mind, if others were con- 
vinced of their real excellence. The jealousy and uneasi- 
ness produced in the mind by the display of superior 
talents almost always arises from a suspicion that there is 
some trick or deception in the case, and that we are im- 
posed on by an appearance of what is not really there. 
True warmth and vigour communicate warmth and vigour ; 
and we are no longer inclined to dispute the inspiration of 
the oracle, when we feel the " presens Divus " in our own 
bosoms. But when, without gaining any new light or heat, 
we only find our ideas thrown into perplexity and confu- 
sion by an art that we cannot comprehend, this is a kind 
of superiority which must always be painful, and can 
never be cordially admitted. For this reason the extra- 
ordinary talents of Mr Pitt were always viewed, except by 
those of his own party, with a sort of jealousy, and grudg- 
ingly acknowledged ; while those of his rivals were ad- 
mitted by all parties in the most unreserved manner, and 
carried by acclamation. 

1806. 



ESSAY XV. 

ON THE CHAEACTEE OF LOED 
CHATHAM. 



Loed Chatham's genius burnt brightest at the 
last. The spark of liberty, which had lain con- 
cealed and dormant, buried under the dirt and 
rubbish of state intrigue and vulgar faction, now 
met with congenial matter, and kindled up " a flame 
of sacred vehemence " in his breast. It burst forth 
with a fury and a splendour that might have awed 
the world, and made kings tremble. He spoke as 
a man should speak, because he felt as a man 
should feel, in such circumstances. He came 
forward as the advocate of liberty, as the defender 
of the rights of his fellow-citizens, as the enemy 
of tyranny, as the friend of his country, and of 
mankind. He did not stand up to make a vain 
display of his talents, but to discharge a duty, to 
maintain that cause which lay nearest to his heart, 
to preserve the ark of the British constitution from 
every sacrilegious touch, as the high-priest of his 
calling, with a pious zeal. The feelings and the 



ON THE CHARACTER OF LORD CHATHAM. 283 

rights of Englishmen were enshrined in his heart ; 
and with their united force braced every nerve, 
possessed every faculty, and communicated warmth 
and vital energy to every part of his being. The 
whole man moved under this impulse. He felt 
the cause of liberty as his own. He resented every 
injury done to her as an injury to himself, and 
every attempt to defend it as an insult upon his un- 
derstanding. He did not stay to dispute about 
words, about nice distinctions, about trifling forms. 
He laughed at the little attempts of little retailers 
of logic to entangle him in senseless argument. 
He did not come there as to a debating club, or law 
court, to start questions and hunt them down ; to 
wind and unwind the web of sophistry ; to pick 
out the threads, and untie every knot with scrupu- 
lous exactness ; to bandy logic with every pretender 
to a paradox ; to examine, to sift evidence ; to dis- 
sect a doubt and halve a scruple ; to weigh folly 
and knavery in scales together, and see on which 
side the balance preponderated; to prove that 
liberty, truth, virtue, and justice were good things, 
or that slavery and corruption were bad things. 
He did not try to prove those truths which did not 
require any proof, but to make others feel them 
with the same force that he did ; and to tear off 
the flimsy disguises with which the sycophants of 
power attempted to cover them* The business of 



284 ON THE CHARACTER OF 

an orator is not to convince, but persuade ; not to 
inform, but to rouse the mind ; to build upon the 
habitual prejudices of mankind, (for reason of 
itself will do nothing,) and to add feeling to preju- 
dice, and action to feeling. There is nothing new 
or curious or profound in Lord Chatham's speeches. 
All is obvious and common ; there is nothing but 
what we already knew, or might have found out for 
ourselves. W-e see nothing but the familiar every- 
day face of nature. We are always in broad day- 
light. But then there is the same difference be- 
tween our own conceptions of things and his repre- 
sentation of them, as there is between the same 
objects seen on a dull cloudy day or in the blaze 
of sunshine. His common sense has the effect of 
inspiration. He electrifies his hearers, not by the 
novelty of his ideas, but by their force and intensity* 
He has the same ideas as other men, but he has 
them in a thousand times greater clearness and 
strength and vividness. Perhaps there is no man 
so poorly furnished with thoughts and feelings but 
that if he could recollect all that he knew, and had 
all his ideas at perfect command, he would be abte 
to confound the puny arts of the most dexterous 
sophist that pretended to make a dupe of his un- 
derstanding. But in the mind of Chatham, the 
great substantial truths of common sense, the lead- 
ing maxims of the Constitution, the real interests 



LORD CHATHAM. 285 

and general feelings of mankind, were in a manner 
embodied. He comprehended the whole of his 
subject at a single glance — everything was firmly 
rivetted to its place ; there was no feebleness, no 
forgetfulness, no pause, no distraction ; the ardour 
of his mind overcame every obstacle, and he crushed 
the objections of his adversaries as we crush an 
insect under our feet. — His imagination was of the 
same character with his understanding, and was 
under the same guidance. Whenever he gave way 
to it, it " flew an eagle flight, forth and right on ; " 
but it did not become enamoured of its own motion, 
wantoning in giddy circles, or " sailing with supreme 
dominion through the azure deep of air." It never 
forgot its errand, but went straight forward, like an 
arrow to its mark, with an unerring aim. It was 
his servant, not his master. 

To be a great orator does not require the highest 
faculties of the human mind, but it requires the 
highest exertion of the common faculties of our 
nature. He has no occasion to dive into the 
depths of science, or to soar aloft on angels' wings. 
He keeps upon the surface, he stands firm upon 
the ground, but his form is majestic, and his eye 
sees far and near : he moves among his fellows, 
but he moves among them as a giant among 
common men. He has no need to read the 
heavens, to unfold the system of the universe, or 



286 ON THE CHARACTER OF 

create new worlds for the delighted fancy to dwell 
in ; it is enough that he see things as they are ; 
that he knows and feels and remembers the common 
circumstances and daily transactions that are passing 
in the world around him. He is not raised above 
others by being superior to the common interests, 
prejudices, and passions of mankind, but by feeling 
them in a more intense degree than they do. 
Force, then, is the sole characteristic excellence of 
an orator ; it is almost the only one that can be of 
any service to him. Kefinement, depth, elevation, 
delicacy, originality, ingenuity, invention, are not 
wanted : he must appeal to the sympathies of 
human nature, and whatever is not founded in these, 
is foreign to his purpose. He does not create, he 
can only imitate or echo back the public sentiment. 
His object is to call up the feelings of the human 
breast ; but he cannot call up what is not already 
there. The first duty of an orator is to be under- 
stood by every one ; but it is evident that what all 
can understand, is not in itself difficult of compre- 
hension. He cannot add anything to the materials 
afforded him by the knowledge and experience of 
others. 

Lord Chatham, in his speeches, was neither 
philosopher nor poet. As to the latter, the difference 
between poetry and eloquence I take to be this : 
that the object of the one is to delight the imagi- 



LOED CHATHAM. 287 

nation, that of the other to impel the will. The 
one ought to enrich and feed the mind itself with 
tenderness and beauty, the other furnishes it with 
motives of action. The one seeks to give immediate 
pleasure, to make the mind dwell with rapture on 
its own workings — it is to itself " both end and 
use :" the other endeavours to call up such images 
as will produce the strongest effect upon the mind, 
and makes use of the passions only as instruments 
to attain a particular purpose. The poet lulls and 
soothes the mind into a forgetfulness of itself, and 
" laps it in Elysium :" the orator strives to awaken 
it to a sense of its real interests, and to make it 
feel the necessity of taking the most effectual means 
for securing them. The one dwells in an ideal 
world ; the other is only conversant with realities. 
Hence poetry must be more ornamented, must be 
richer and fuller and more delicate, because it is at 
liberty to select whatever images are naturally most 
beautiful, and likely to give most pleasure; whereas 
the orator is confined to particular facts, which he 
may adorn as well as he can, and make the most 
of, but which he cannot strain beyond a certain 
point without running into extravagance and 
affectation, and losing his end. However, from 
the very nature of the case, the orator is allowed a 
greater latitude, and is compelled to make use of 
harsher and more abrupt combinations in the 



288 ON THE CHAEACTES OF 

decoration of his subject ; for his art is an attempt 
to reconcile beauty and deformity together : on the 
contrary, the materials of poetry, which are chosen 
at pleasure, are in themselves beautiful, and 
naturally combine with whatever else is beautiful. 
Grace and harmony are therefore essential to poetry, 
because they naturally arise out of the subject; 
but whatever adds to the effect, whatever tends to 
strengthen the idea or give energy to the mind, is 
of the nature of eloquence. The orator is only 
concerned to give a tone of masculine firmness to 
the will, to brace the sinews and muscles of the 
mind ; not to delight our nervous sensibilities, or 
soften the mind into voluptuous indolence. The 
flowery and sentimental style is of all others the 
most intolerable in a speaker. — I shall only add 
on this subject, that modesty, impartiality, and 
candour, are not the virtues of a public speaker. 
He must be confident, inflexible, uncontrollable, 
overcoming all opposition by his ardour and im- 
petuosity. We do not command others by sympathy 
with them, but by power, by passion, by will. 
Calm inquiry, sober truth, and speculative in- 
difference will never carry any point. The passions 
are contagious ; and we cannot contend against 
opposite passions with nothing but naked reason. 
Concessions to an enemy are clear loss ; he will 
take advantage of them, but make us none in 



ON THE CHABACTER OF LORD CHATHAM. 289 

return. He will magnify the weak sides of our 
argument, but will be blind to whatever makes 
against himself. The multitude will always be 
inclined to side with that party whose passions are 
the most inflamed, and whose prejudices are the 
most inveterate. Passion should therefore never 
be sacrificed to punctilio. It should indeed be 
governed by prudence, but it should itself govern 
and lend its impulse and direction to abstract reason. 
Fox was a reasoner, Lord Chatham was an orator. 
Burke was both a reasoner and a poet ; and was 
therefore still farther removed from that conformity 
with the vulgar notions and mechanical feelings of 
mankind, which will always be necessary to give a 
man the chief sway in a popular assembly. 

1806. 



ESSAY XVI. 

BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY? 



u Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought." 

It is an axiom in modern philosophy (among 
many other false ones) that belief is absolutely 
involuntary, since we draw our inferences from the 
premises laid before us, and cannot possibly receive 
any other impression of things than that which they 
naturally make upon us. This theory, that the 
understanding is purely passive in the reception of 
truth, and that our convictions are not in the 
power of our will, was probably first invented or 
insisted upon as a screen against religious persecu- 
tion, and as an answer to those who imputed bad 
motives to all who differed from the established 
faith, and thought they could reform heresy and 
impiety by the application of fire and the sword. 
No doubt, that is not the way : for the will in that 
case irritates itself and grows refractory against the 
doctrines thus absurdly forced upon it ; and as it 



BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY? 291 

has been said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed 
of the Church. But though force and terror may 
not be always the surest way to make converts, it 
does not follow that there may not be other means 
of influencing our opinions, besides the naked and 
abstract evidence for any proposition : the sun 
melts the resolution which the storm could not 
shake. In such points as. whether an object is 
black or white or whether two and two make four,* 
we may not be able to believe as we please or to 
deny the evidence of our reason and senses : but in 
those points on which mankind differ, or where we 
can be at all in suspense as to which side we shall 
take, the truth is not quite so plain or palpable ; it 
admits of a variety of views and shades of colouring, 
and it should appear that we can dwell upon which- 
ever of these we choose, and heighten or soften the 
circumstances adduced in proof, according as pas- 
sion and inclination throw their casting-weight into 
the scale. Let any one, for instance, have been 
brought up in an opinion, let him have remained 
in it all his life, let him have attached all his no- 
tions of respectability, of the approbation of his 
fellow-citizens or his own self-esteem to it, let him 
then first hear it called in question, and a strong 

* Hobbes is of opinion that men would deny this, if 
they had any interest in doing so. 



292 BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY? 

and unforeseen objection stated to it, will not this 
startle and shock him as if he had seen a spectre, 
and will he not struggle to resist the arguments 
that would unsettle his habitual convictions, as he 
would resist the divorcing of soul and body ? Will 
he come to the consideration of the question impar- 
tially, indifferently, and without any wrong bias, or 
give the painful and revolting truth the same cor- 
dial welcome as the long-cherished and favourite 
prejudice ? To say that the truth or falsehood of a 
proposition is the only circumstance that gains it 
admittance into the mind, independently of the 
pleasure or pain it affords us, is itself an assertion 
made in pure caprice or desperation. A person 
may have a profession or employment connected 
with a certain belief, it may be the means of liveli- 
hood to him, and the changing it may require con- 
siderable sacrifices, or may leave him almost with- 
out resource (to say nothing of mortified pride) — 
this will not mend the matter. The evidence 
against his former opinion may be so strong (or 
may appear so to him) that he may be obliged to 
give it up, but not without a pang and after having 
tried every artifice and strained every nerve to give 
the utmost weight to the arguments favouring his 
own side, and to make light of and throw those 
against him into the background. And nine times 
in ten this bias of the will and tampering with the 



BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY? 293 

proofs will prevail. It is only with very vigorous 
or very candid minds that the understanding exer- 
cises its just and boasted prerogative, and induces 
its votaries to relinquish a profitable delusion and 
embrace the dowerless truth. Even then they 
have the sober and discreet part of the world, all 
the bons peres de famiUe, who look principally to 
the main chance, against them, and they are 
regarded as little better than lunatics or profligates 
to fling up a good salary and a provision for them- 
selves and families for the sake of that foolish thing, 
a Conscience ! With the herd, belief on all abstract 
and disputed topics is voluntary, that is, is deter- 
mined by considerations of personal ease and con- 
venience, in the teeth of logical analysis and demon- 
stration, which are set aside as mere waste of words. 
In short, generally speaking, people stick to an opi 
nion that they have long supported and that supports 
them. How else shall we account for the regular 
order and progression of society : for the mainte- 
nance of certain opinions in particular professions 
and classes of men, as we keep water in cisterns, 
till in fact they stagnate and corrupt : and that the 
world and every individual in it is not " blown 
about with every wind of doctrine" and whisper of 
uncertainty? There is some more solid ballast 
required to keep things in their established order 
than the restless fluctuation of opinion and " infi- 



294 BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY? 

nite agitation of wit." We find that people in 
Protestant countries continue Protestants, and in 
Catholic countries Papists. This, it may be an- 
swered, is owing to the ignorance of the great mass 
of them ; but is their faith less bigoted, because it 
is not founded on a regular investigation of the 
proofs, and is merely an obstinate determination to 
believe what they have been told and accustomed to 
believe ? Or is it not the same with the doctors of the 
church and its most learned champions, who read 
the same texts, turn over the same authorities, and 
discuss the same knotty points through their whole 
lives, only to arrive at opposite conclusions ? How 
few are shaken in their opinions, or have the grace 
to confess it? Shall we then suppose them all 
impostors, and that they keep up the farce of a 
system, of which they do not believe a syllable? 
Far from it : there may be individual instances, 
but the generality are not only sincere but bigots. 
Those who are unbelievers and hypocrites scarcely 
know it themselves, or if a man is not quite a 
knave, what pains will he not take to make a fool 
of his reason, that his opinions may tally with his 
professions ? Is there then a Papist and a Protes- 
tant understanding — one prepared to receive the 
doctrine of transubstantiation and the other to 
reject it ? No such thing : but in either case the 
ground of reason is pre -occupied by passion, habit, 



BELIEF, WHETHEE VOLUNTAEY ? 295 

example — the scales are falsified. Nothing can 
therefore be more inconsequential than to bring the 
authority of great names in favour of opinions long 
established and universally received. Cicero's being 
a Pagan was no proof in support of the Heathen 
mythology, but simply of his being born at Rome 
before the Christian era ; though his lurking scepti- 
cism on the subject and sneers at the augurs told 
against it, for this was an acknowledgment drawn 
from him in spite of a prevailing prejudice. Sir 
Isaac Newton and Napier of Marchiston both wrote 
on the Apocalypse; but this is neither a ground 
for a speedy anticipation of the Millennium, nor 
does it invalidate the doctrine of the gravitation of 
the planets or the theory of logarithms. One party 
would borrow the sanction of these great names in 
support of their wildest and most mystical opinions; 
others would arraign them of folly and weakness for 
having attended to such subjects at all. Neither 
inference is just. It is a simple question of chro- 
nology, or of the time when these celebrated mathe- 
maticians lived, and of the studies and pursuits 
which were then chiefly in vogue. The wisest man 
is the slave of opinion, except on one or two points 
on which he strikes out a light for himself and holds 
a torch to the rest of the world. But we are dis- 
posed to make it out that all opinions are the result 
of reason, because they profess to be so ; and when 



296 BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY? 

they are right, that is, when they agree with ours, 
that there can be no alloy of human frailty or per- 
versity in them ; the very strength of our prejudice 
making it pass for pure reason, and leading us to 
attribute any deviation from it to bad faith or some 
unaccountable singularity or infatuation. Alas, 
poor human nature! Opinion is for the most 
part only a battle, in which we take part and 
defend the side we have adopted, in the one case 
or the other, with a view to share the honour or the 
spoil. Few will stand up for a losing cause, or 
have the fortitude to adhere to a proscribed opi- 
nion ; and when they do, it is not always from 
superior strength of understanding or a disinter- 
ested love of truth, but from obstinacy and sullen- 
ness of temper. To affirm that we do not cultivate 
an acquaintance with truth as she presents herself 
to us in a more or less pleasing shape, or is shabbily 
attired or well-dressed, is as much as to say that we 
do not shut our eyes to the light when it dazzles 
us, or withdraw our hands from the fire when it 
scorches us. 

" Masterless passion sways us to the mood 
Of what it likes or loathes." 

Are we not averse to believe bad news relating to 
ourselves — forward enough if it relates to others ? 
If something is said reflecting on the character of 



BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY? 297 

an intimate friend or near relative, how unwilling 
we are to lend an ear to it, how we catch at every 
excuse or palliating circumstance, and hold out 
against the clearest proof, while we instantly believe 
any idle report against an enemy, magnify the 
commonest trifles into crimes, and torture the evi- 
dence against him to our heart's content ! Do not 
we change our opinion of the same person, and 
make him out to be black or white according to the 
terms we happen to he on ? If we have a favourite 
author, do we not exaggerate his beauties and pass 
over his defects, and vice versa ? The human mind 
plays the interested advocate much oftener than 
the upright and inflexible judge, in the colouring 
and relief it gives to the facts brought before it. 
We believe things not more because they are true 
or probable, than because we desire, or (if the ima- 
gination once takes that turn) because we dread 
them. " Fear has more devils than vast hell can 
hold." The sanguine always hope, the gloomy 
always despond, from temperament and not from 
forethought. Do we not disguise the plainest facts 
from ourselves if they are disagreeable ? Do we 
not flatter ourselves with impossibilities ? What 
girl does not look in the glass to persuade herself 
she is handsome ? What woman ever believes 
herself old, or does not hate to be called so : though 
she knows the exact year and day of her age, the 



298 BELIEF, WHETHEE VOLUNTARY? 

more she tries to keep up the appearance of youth 
to herself and others? What lover would ever 
acknowledge a flaw in the character of his mistress, 
or would not construe her turning her back on him 
into a proof of attachment ? The story of Janu- 
ary and May is pat to our purpose ; for the credu- 
lity of mankind as to what touches our inclinations 
has been proverbial in all ages : yet we are told 
that the mind is passive in making up these wilful 
accounts, and is guided by nothing but the pros 
and cons of evidence. Even in action and where 
we may determine by proper precaution the event 
of things, instead of being compelled to shut our 
eyes to what we cannot help, we still are the dupes 
of the feeling of the moment, and prefer amusing 
ourselves with fair appearances to securing more 
solid benefits by a sacrifice of Imagination and 
stubborn Will to Truth. The blindness of passion 
to the most obvious and well-known consequences is 
deplorable. There seems to be a particular fatality 
in this respect. Because a thing is in our power 
till we have committed ourselves, we appear to 
dally, to trifle with, to make light of it, and to 
think it will still be in our power after we have 
committed ourselves. Strange perversion of the 
reasoning faculties, which is little short of madness, 
and which yet is one of the constant and practical 
sophisms of human life ! It is as if one should 



BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY? 299 

say — I am iu no danger from a tremendous ma- 
chine unless I touch such a spring and therefore I 
will approach it, I will play with the danger, I will 
laugh at it, and at last in pure sport and wanton- 
ness of heart, from my sense of previous security, 
I will touch it — and there s an end. While the 
thing remains in contemplation, we may be said 
to stand safe and smiling on the brink : as soon as 
we proceed to action we are drawn into the vortex 
of passion and hurried to our destruction. A per- 
son taken up with some one purpose or passion is 
intent only upon that : he drives out the thought 
of everything but its gratification : in the pursuit 
of that he is blind to consequences : his first object 
being attained, they all at once, and as if by magic, 
rush upon his mind. The engine recoils, he is 
caught in his own snare. A servant girl, for some 
pique, or for an angry word, determines to poison 
her mistress. She knows beforehand (just as well 
as she does afterwards) that it is at least a hun- 
dred chances to one she will be hanged if she suc- 
ceeds, yet this has no more effect upon her than if 
she had never heard of any such matter. The 
only idea that occupies her mind and hardens it 
against every other, is that of the affront she has 
received, and the desire of revenge; she broods 
over it ; she meditates the mode, she is haunted 
with her scheme night and day ; it works like poi- 



300 BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY? 

son ; it grows into a madness, and she can have 
no peace till it is accomplished and off her mind ; 
but the moment this is the case, and her passion is 
assuaged, fear takes place of hatred, the slightest 
suspicion alarms her with the certainty of her fate, 
from which she before wilfully averted her thoughts ; 
she runs wildly from the officers before they know 
anything of the matter ; the gallows stares her in 
the face, and if none else accuses her, so full is she 
of her danger and her guilt, that she probably 
betrays herself. She at first would see no conse- 
quences to result from her crime but the getting 
rid of a present uneasiness ; she now sees the very 
worst. The whole seems to depend on the turn 
given to the imagination, on our immediate dispo- 
sition to attend to this or that view of the subject, 
the evil or the good. As long as our intention is 
unknown to the world, before it breaks out into 
action, it seems to be deposited in our own bosoms, 
to be a mere feverish dream, and to be left with 
all its consequences under our imaginary control : 
but no sooner is it realized and known to others, 
than it appears to have escaped from our reach, 
we fancy the whole world are up in arms against 
us, and vengeance is ready to pursue and over- 
take us. So in the pursuit of pleasure, we see 
only that side of the question which we approve : 
the disagreeable consequences (which may take 



BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY ? 301 

place) make no part of our intention or concern, or 
of the wayward exercise of our will : if they should 
happen we cannot help it ; they form an ugly and 
unwished-for contrast to our favourite speculation : 
we turn our thoughts another way, repeating the 
adage quod sic mihi ostendis incredulus odi. It is 
a good remark in ' Vivian Grey,' that a bankrupt 
walks the streets the day before his name is in the 
Gazette with the same erect and confident brow 
as ever, and only feels the mortification of his 
situation after it becomes known to others. Such 
is the force of sympathy, and its power to take off 
the edge of internal conviction ! As long as we can 
impose upon the world, we can impose upon our- 
selves, and trust to the flattering appearances, 
though we know them to be false. We put off the 
evil day as long as we can, make a jest of it as the 
certainty becomes more painful, and refuse to ac- 
knowledge the secret to ourselves till it can no 
longer be kept from all the world. In short, we 
believe just as little or as much as we please of 
those things in which our will can be supposed to 
interfere ; and it is only by setting aside our own 
interests and inclinations on more general questions 
that we stand any chance of arriving at a fair and ra- 
tional judgment. Those who have the largest hearts 
have the soundest understandings ; and he is the 
truest philosopher who can forget himself. This is 



302 BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY? 

the reason why philosophers are often said to be mad, 
for thinking only of the abstract truth and of none 
of its worldly adjuncts, — it seems like an absence 
of mind, or as if the devil had got into them ! If 
belief were not in some degree voluntary, or were 
grounded entirely on strict evidence and absolute 
proof, every one would be a martyr to his opi- 
nions, and we should have no power of evading or 
glossing over those matter-of-fact conclusions for 
which positive vouchers could be produced, however 
painful these conclusions might be to our own feel- 
ings, or offensive to the prejudices of others. 



ESSAY XVII. 

A FAREWELL TO ESSAY-WRITING. 



" This life is best, if quiet life is best." 

Food, warmth, sleep, and a book ; these are all I 
at present ask — the ultima Thule of my wandering 
desires. Do you not then wish for 

" A friend in your retreat, 
Whom you may whisper, solitude is sweet V 

Expected, well enough :-»—gone, still better. Such 
attractions are strengthened by distance. Nor a 
mistress ? " Beautiful mask ! I know thee ! " 
When I can judge of the heart from the face, of the 
thoughts from the lips, I may again trust myself. 
Instead of these, give me the robin red-breast, 
pecking the crumbs at the door, or warbling on the 
leafless spray, the same glancing form that has fol- 
lowed me wherever I have been, and " done its 
spiriting gently ; " or the rich notes of the thrush 
that startle the ear of winter, and seem to have 



304 A FAREWELL TO ESSAY- WKITLNG. 

drunk up the full draught of joy from the very sense 
of contrast. To these I adhere, and am faithful, 
for they are true to me ; and, dear in themselves, 
are dearer for the sake of what is departed, leading 
me back (by the hand) to that dreaming world, in 
the innocence of which they sat and made sweet 
music, waking the promise of future years, and 
answered by the eager throbbings of my own breast. 
But now " the credulous hope of mutual minds is 
o'er," and I turn back from the world that has 
deceived me, to nature that lent it a false beauty, 
and that keeps up the illusion of the past. As I 
quaff my libations of tea in a morning, I love to 
watch the clouds sailing from the west, and fancy 
that " the spring comes slowly up this way." In this 
hope, while " fields are dank and ways are mire," 
I follow the same direction to a neighbouring wood, 
where, having gained the dry, level greensward, I 
can see my way for a mile before me, closed in on 
each side by copse-wood, and ending in a point of 
light more or less brilliant, as the day is bright or 
cloudy. What a walk is this to me ! I have no 
need of book or companion — the days, the hours, 
the thoughts of my youth are at my side, and blend 
with the air that fans my cheek. Here I can 
saunter for hours, bending my eye forward, stop- 
ping and turning to look back, thinking to strike 
off into some less trodden path, yet hesitating to 



A FAREWELL TO ESSAY- WRITING. 305 

quit the one I am in, afraid to snap the brittle 
threads of memory. I remark the shining trunks 
and slender branches of the birch-trees, waving in 
the idle breeze ; or a pheasant springs up on whir- 
ring wing ; or I recal the spot where I once found 
a wood-pigeon at the foot of a tree, weltering in its 
gore, and think how many seasons have flown since 
" it left its little life in air." Dates, names, faces 
come back— to what purpose? Or why think of 
them now ? wOr rather, why not think of them 
oftener ? We walk through life, as through a nar- 
row path, with a thin curtain drawn around it; 
behind are ranged rich portraits, airy harps are 
strung — yet we will not stretch forth our hands and 
lift aside the veil, to catch glimpses of the one, or 
sweep the chords of the other. As in a theatre, 
when the old-fashioned green curtain drew up, 
groups of figures, fantastic dresses, laughing faces, 
rich banquets, stately columns, gleaming vistas 
appeared beyond ; so we have only at any time to 
" peep through the blanket of the past," to possess 
ourselves at once of all that has regaled our senses, 
that is stored up in our memory, that has struck 
our fancy, that has pierced our hearts : — yet to all 
this we are indifferent, insensible, and seem intent 
only on the present vexation, the future disappoint- 
ment. If there is a Titian hanging up in the room 
with me, I scarcely regard it : how then should I be 

N 



306 A FAEEWELL TO ESSAY- WEITING. 

expected to strain the mental eye so far, or to 
throw down, by the magic spells of the will, the 
stone-walls that enclose it in the Louvre ? There 
is one head there of which I have often thought, 
when looking at it, that nothing should ever dis- 
turb me again, and I would become the character 
it represents — such perfect calmness and self-pos- 
session reigns in it ! Why do I not hang an image 
of this in some dusky corner of my brain, and turn 
an eye upon it ever and anon, as I Jiave need of 
some such talisman to calm my troubled thoughts ? 
The attempt is fruitless, if not natural ; or, like 
that of the French, to hang garlands on the grave, 
and to conjure back the dead by miniature-pictures 
of them while living ! It is only some actual coin- 
cidence or local association that tends, without 
violence, to " open all the cells where memory 
slept." I can easily, by stooping over the long- 
sprent grass and clay cold clod, recal the tufts of 
primroses, or purple hyacinths, that formerly grew 
on the same spot, and cover the bushes with leaves 
and singing-birds, as they were eighteen summers 
ago ; or prolonging my walk and hearing the 
sighing gale rustle through a tall, strait wood at 
the end of it, can fancy that I distinguish the cry 
of hounds, and the fatal group issuing from it, as in 
the tale of Theodore and Honoria. A moaning 
gust of wind aids the belief ; I look once more to 



A FAREWELL TO ESSAY-WKITING. 307 

see whether the trees before me answer to the idea 
of the horror-stricken grove, and an air-built city 
towers over their grey tops. 

" Of all the cities in Romanian lands, 

The chief and most renown'd Ravenna stands." 

I return home resolved to read the entire poem 
through, and, after dinner, drawing my chair to the 
fire, and holding a small print close to my eyes, 
launch into, the full tide of Dryden's couplets 
(a stream of sound), comparing his didactic and 
descriptive pomp with the simple pathos and 
picturesque truth of Boccacio's story, and tasting 
with a pleasure, which none but an habitual reader 
can feel, some quaint examples of pronunciation in 
this accomplished versifier. 

" Which when Honoria view d, 
The fresh impulse her former fright renew'd." 

Theodore and Honoria. 
" And made th' insult, which in his grief appears, 
The means to mourn thee with my pious tears." 
Sigismonda and Guiscardo. 

These trifling instances of the wavering and un- 
settled state of the language give double effect to 
the firm and stately march of the verse, and make 
me dwell with a sort of tender interest on the diffi- 
culties and doubts of an earlier period of literature. 
They pronounced words then in a manner which 
we should laugh at now ; and they wrote verse in 



308 A FAREWELL TO ESSAY- WRITING, 

a manner which we can do anything but laugh at, 
The pride of a new acquisition seems to give fresh 
confidence to it ; to impel the rolling syllables 
through the moulds provided for them, and to 
overflow the envious bounds of rhyme into time- 
honoured triplets. 

What sometimes surprises me in looking back 
to the past, is, with the exception already stated, 
to find myself so little changed in the time. The 
same images and trains of thought stick by me : 
I have the same tastes, likings, sentiments, and 
wishes that I had then. One great ground of con- 
fidence and support has, indeed, been struck from 
under my feet; but I have made it up to myself 
by proportionable pertinacity of opinion. The suc- 
cess of the great cause, to which I had vowed my- 
self, was to me more than all the world : I had a 
strength in its strength, a resource which I knew 
not of, till it failed me for the second time* 

" Fall'n was Glenartny's stately tree ! 
Oh ! ne'er to see Lord Ronald more !" 

It was not till I saw the axe laid to the root, 
that I found the full extent of what I had to lose 
and suffer. But my conviction of the right was 
only established by the triumph of the wrong ; 
and my earliest hopes will be my last regrets. One 
source of this unbendingness, (which some may call 
obstinacy,) is that, though living much alone, I have 



A FAPwEWELL TO ESSAY-WRITING. 309 

never worshipped the Echo. I see plainly enough 
that black is not white, that the grass is green, 
that kings are not their subjects ; and, in such self- 
evident cases, do not think it necessary to collate 
my opinions with the received prejudices. In 
subtler questions, and matters that admit of doubt, 
as I do not impose my opinion on others without a 
reason, so I will not give up mine to them without 
a better reason ; and a person calling me names, 
or giving himself airs of authority, does not con- 
vince me of his having taken more pains to find 
out the truth than I have, but the contrary. Mr 
GifTord once said, that " while I was sitting over 
my gin and tobacco-pipes, I fancied myself a Leib- 
nitz." He did not so much as know that I had 
ever read a metaphysical book : — was I there- 
fore, out of complaisance or deference to him. to 
forget whether I had or not? Leigh Hunt is 
puzzled to reconcile the shyness of my preten- 
sions, with the inveteracy and sturdiness of my 
principles. I should have thought they were 
nearly the same thing. Both from disposition and 
habit, I can assume nothing in word, look, or man- 
ner. I cannot steal a march upon public opinion 
in any way. My standing upright, speaking loud, 
entering a room gracefully, proves nothing ; there- 
fore I neglect these ordinary means of recommend- 
ing myself to the good graces and admiration of 
strangers (and, as it appears, even of philosophers 



310 A FAREWELL TO ESS AT- WRITING. 

and friends). Why? Because I have other re- 
sources, or, at least, am absorbed in other studies 
and pursuits. Suppose this absorption to be ex- 
treme, and even morbid — that I have brooded 
over an idea till it has become a kind of substance 
in my brain, that I have reasons for a thing which 
I have found out with much labour and pains, and 
to which I can scarcely do justice without the 
utmost violence of exertion, (and that only to a few 
persons,) — is this a reason for my playing off my 
out-of-the-way notions in all companies, wearing a 
prim and self-complacent air, as if I were " the 
admired of all observers ? " or is it not rather an 
argument, (together with a want of animal spirits,) 
why I should retire into myself, and perhaps 
acquire a nervous and uneasy look, from a consci- 
ousness of the disproportion between the interest 
and conviction I feel on certain subjects, and my 
ability to communicate what weighs upon my own 
mind to others ? If my ideas, which I do not 
avouch, but suppose, lie below the surface, why am 
I to be always attempting to dazzle superficial 
people with them, or smiling, delighted, at my own 
want of success ? 

In matters of taste and feeling, one proof that 
my conclusions have not been quite shallow or 
hasty, is the circumstance of their having been 
lasting. I have the same favourite books, pictures, 
passages, that I ever had : I may therefore pre- 



A FAREWELL TO ESSAY- WRITING. 311 

sume that they will last me my life — nay, I may 
indulge a hope that my thoughts will survive me. 
This continuity of impression is the only thing on 
which I pride myself. Even Lamb, whose relish 
of certain things is as keen and earnest as possible, 
takes a surfeit of admiration, and I should be afraid 
to ask about his select authors or particular friends, 
after a lapse of ten years. As to myself, any one 
knows where to have me. What I have once made 
up my mind to, I abide by to the end of the chap- 
ter. One cause of my independence of opinion is, 
I believe, the liberty I give to others, or the very 
diffidence and distrust of making converts. I 
should be an excellent man on a. jury. I might 
say little, but should starve "the other eleven 
obstinate fellows" out. I remember Mr Godwin 
writing to Mr Wordsworth, that " his tragedy of 
Antonio could not fail of success." It was damned 
past all redemption. I said to Mr Wordsworth 
that I thought this a natural consequence ; for how 
could any one have a dramatic turn of mind who 
judged entirely of others from himself? Mr God- 
win might be convinced of the excellence of his 
work ; but how could he know that others would be 
convinced of it, unless by supposing that they were 
as wise as himself, and as infallible critics of dra- 
matic poetry — so many Aristotles sitting in judg- 
ment on Euripides ! This shows why pride is 
connected with shyness and reserve ; for the really 



312 A FAREWELL TO ESSAY-WKITING. 

proud have not so high an opinion of the generality 
as to suppose that they can understand them, or 
that there is any common measure between them. 
So Dryden exclaims of his opponents with bitter 
disdain — 

" Nor caD I think what thoughts they can conceive." 

I have not sought to make partisans, still less did 
I dream of making enemies ; and have therefore 
kept my opinions myself, whether they were cur- 
rently adopted or not. To get others to come into 
our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs ; 
and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead. At 
the time I lived here formerly, I had no suspicion 
that I should ever become a voluminous writer ; 
yet I had just the same confidence in my feelings 
before I had ventured to air them in public as I 
have now. Neither the outcry for or against moves 
me a jot : I do not say that the one is not more 
agreeable than the other. 

Not far from the spot where I write, I first read 
Chaucer's Flower and Leaf, and was charmed with 
that young beauty, shrouded in her bower, and lis- 
tening with ever-fresh delight to the repeated song 
of the nightingale close by her — the impression of 
the scene, the vernal landscape, the cool of the 
morning, the gushing notes of the songstress, 

" And ayen, methought she sung close by mine ear," 

is as vivid as if it had been of yesterday ; and 



A FAREWELL TO ESS AT- WRITING. 313 

nothing can persuade me that that is not a fine 
poem. I do not find this impression conveyed in 
Dryden's version, and therefore nothing can per- 
suade me that that is as fine. I used to walk out 
at this time with Mr and Miss Lamh of an even- 
ing, to look at the Claude Lorraine skies over our 
heads melting from azure into purple and gold, 
and to gather mushrooms, that sprung up at our 
feet, to throw into our hashed mutton at supper. 
I was at that time an enthusiastic admirer of 
Claude, and could dwell for ever on one or two of 
the finest prints from him hung round my little 
room; the fleecy flocks, the bending trees, the 
winding streams, the groves, the nodding temples, 
the air-wove hills, and distant sunny vales ; and 
tried to translate them into their lovely living 
hues. People then told me that Wilson was much 
superior to Claude : I did not believe them. Their 
pictures have since been seen together at the Bri- 
tish Institution, and all the w r orld have come into 
my opinion. I have not, on that account, given it 
up. I will not compare our hashed mutton with 
Amelia's ; but it put us in mind of it, and led to a 
discussion, sharply seasoned and well sustained, till 
midnight, the result of which appeared some years 
after in the ' Edinburgh Review.' Have I a better 
opinion of those criticisms on that account, or should 
I therefore maintain them with greater vehemence 
and tenaciousness ? Oh no! Both rather with 



314 A FAKE WELL TO ESSAY-WKITING. 

less, now that tbey are before the public, and it is 
for them to make their election. 

It is in looking back to such scenes that I draw 
my best consolation for the future. Later impres- 
sions come and go, and serve to fill up the inter- 
vals ; but these are my standing resource, my true 
classics. If I have had few real pleasures or advan- 
tages, my ideas, from their sinewy texture, have 
been to me in tbe nature of realities ; and if I 
should not be able to add to tbe stock, I can live 
by husbanding the interest. As to my speculations, 
there is little to admire in them but my admiration 
of i '.lers; and whether they have an echo in time 
to come or not, I have learned to set a grateful 
value on the past, and am content to wind up the 
account of what is personal only to myself and the 
immediate circle of objects in which I have moved, 
with an act of easy oblivion, 

" And curtain-close such, scene from every future view." 
Winterslow, Feb. 20, 1828. 



THE END. 



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